Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > The US Has Been Pushing to Overthrow Assad in Syria for 10 Years
________________________________________
The US Has Been Pushing to Overthrow Assad in Syria for 10 Years
By David Swanson [1] / davidswanson.org [2]
October 19, 2015
The accepted story in the United States of what's happened in Syria is just
that, a story told to make narrative sense of something completely
un-understood.
In Southern Sweden a giant round rock lies on flat farmland, and the lovely
story my ancestors used to tell to explain how it got there came down to
this: a troll threw it there. As evidence, in a nearby castle, one can find
a horn and a pipe that come into the story. The horn contained what today
would be called chemical weapons, which burned the back of a horse when the
hero of the story was smart enough to dump it over his shoulder rather than
drinking it. Man and horse got away by riding across the furrows of a field,
because everyone knows that trolls must run back and forth the full length
of each furrow, which slows them down tremendously. The facts all fit. Some
fringe conspiracy theorists may question the very existence of trolls, but
such arguments need not be taken seriously.
A peace activist recently sent this video link [3] to a listserve with a
note stating that this video got the Syria story pretty much right. I had a
number of objections:
That the United States got involved in Syria in 2006 is revealed in
WikiLeaks. That the Pentagon was intent on overthrowing the Syrian
government in 2001 is revealed by the Donald Rumsfeld memo shown to Wesley
Clark, and by Tony Blair in 2010. So the story in this video of the U.S.
taking an interest -- purely humanitarian of course -- only in 2013 is
highly misleading.
That misdirection also facilitates leaving out of the story the U.S.
brushing aside of a peace process proposed by Russia in 2012.
The statement, presented in the video as fact, that Assad used chemical
weapons in that attack in 2013 is outrageous, as that has never been
established. What ought to have been said was that someone used chemical
weapons and Obama claimed falsely to have incontrovertible evidence that it
was Assad.
Quoting Obama on a 2013 proposal for a "targeted military strike" blatantly
avoids Seymour Hersh's report on the massive bombing campaign Obama had
planned.
The video's conclusion that because the war is complicated there is
therefore "just no end in sight" is reckless, as an end could be achieved if
some effort were put into it, beginning with an honest assessment of the
facts, and a retelling of 2013 as something other than "the United States
backing down."
What would an honest account about the same length as this video look like?
Perhaps like this:
Sad to say, the global policeman of humanitarian intent is no more real than
a troll or a "Khorasan Group."
At least as early as 2001, the United States had the Syrian government on a
list of governments targeted for overthrow.
In 2003, the United States threw the Middle East into a whole new sort of
turmoil with its invasion of Iraq. It created sectarian divisions, and
fueled and armed and facilitated the organization of violent groups.
At least as early as 2006, the United States had people in Syria working for
the overthrow of the government.
The U.S. response to the Arab Spring, and the U.S.-led overthrow of the
Libyan government made matters worse. ISIS was developing long before it
burst into the news, its leaders organizing in U.S. prison camps in Iraq.
The region was heavily armed with weapons from outside the region, primarily
from the United States. Three-quarters of weapons shipped to Middle-Eastern
governments were and are from the U.S. The weapons of the U.S. military
itself and of its allies, such as Saudi Arabia and Iraq, were intentionally
and accidentally supplied to new violent groups.
The Arab Spring in Syria was made violent almost immediately, with support
for violence from one side coming from the United States and its Gulf
dictatorship allies, and from the other side from Iran and Hezbollah and
Russia. The Free Syrian Army became one player in a civil and proxy and
regional war, recruiting fighters from around the region of "liberated"
disaster states. Al Qaeda became another player, as did the Kurds. The U.S.
government, however, remained focused on overthrowing the Syrian government,
and took no serious steps to halt support for al Qaeda and other groups from
U.S. Gulf allies or Turkey or Jordan (steps such as cutting off the flow of
weapons from the United States, imposing sanctions, negotiating a cease-fire
or arms embargo).
In 2012, Russia proposed a peace-process that would have included President
Bashar al-Assad stepping down, but the U.S. brushed the idea aside without
any serious consideration, suffering under the delusion that Assad would be
violently overthrown very soon, and preferring a violent solution as more
likely to remove the Russian influence and military -- and perhaps also due
to the general U.S. preference for violence driven by its weapons industry
corruption. Meanwhile the Iraqi government was bombing its own citizens with
weapons rushed to it by the U.S., violently fueling the coming ISIS assault.
And the U.S. had "ended" its military occupation of Iraq without ending it.
In 2013, the White House went public with plans to lob some unspecified
number of missiles into Syria, which was in the midst of a horrible civil
war already fueled in part by U.S. arms and training camps, as well as by
wealthy U.S. allies in the region and fighters emerging from other
U.S.-created disasters in the region. The excuse for the missiles was an
alleged killing of civilians, including children, with chemical weapons -- a
crime that President Barack Obama claimed to have certain proof had been
committed by the Syrian government. He never produced so much as a horn or a
pipe or a pleasant story as evidence.
Seymour Hersh would later reveal that the U.S. plan had been for a massive
bombing campaign. And Robert Parry, among others, would report on the
debunking of White House lies about the chemical weapons attack. While Syria
might have been guilty, the White House almost certainly did not know that,
and the U.S. public seemed to recognize that even such guilt would not
justify entering the war. A Russian proposal to eliminate Syria's chemical
weapons had already been known to the White House and been rejected. What
compelled Obama to accept diplomacy as the last resort in 2013 was the
public's and Congress's refusal to allow war. But Obama went right on arming
and training fighters in the Syrian war, and sending more troops back into
Iraq.
When ISIS burst onto the scene it openly begged the United States to attack
it, viewing this as a huge recruitment opportunity. The United States
obliged, attacking ISIS from the air in Iraq and Syria (and getting numerous
allies to do so as well), in addition to continuing its arming and training
operations -- now supposedly aimed at both ISIS and Assad. ISIS thrived, as
did various anti-Asad groups. Turkey joined in by attacking Kurds rather
than ISIS or Assad. Russia joined in by bombing ISIS and anti-government
groups in Syria. This dangerously increased already high tension between
Russia and the United States, as Russia intends to keep the Syrian
government from being overthrown, and the United States intends to overthrow
it -- and to bring in more allies, with the UK planning a vote on adding
their bombs to the mix.
Of course, a ceasefire, an arms embargo, actual aid and reparations,
regional disarmament and diplomacy, and the departure from the region of
foreign powers all remain possible if pursued.
David Swanson's books include "War Is A Lie [4]." He blogs at
davidswanson.org [5] and warisacrime.org [6] and works for the online
activist organization rootsaction.org [7]. He hosts Talk Nation Radio [8].
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Source URL:
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ears
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/david-swanson
[2] http://www.davidswanson.org
[3] https://www.facebook.com/Vox/videos/446925385495069/
[4] http://warisalie.org/
[5] http://davidswanson.org/
[6] http://warisacrime.org/
[7] http://rootsaction.org/
[8] http://davidswanson.org/taxonomy/term/41
[9] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on The US Has Been Pushing
to Overthrow Assad in Syria for 10 Years
[10] http://www.alternet.org/
[11] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > The US Has Been Pushing to Overthrow Assad in Syria for 10 Years
The US Has Been Pushing to Overthrow Assad in Syria for 10 Years
By David Swanson [1] / davidswanson.org [2]
October 19, 2015
The accepted story in the United States of what's happened in Syria is just
that, a story told to make narrative sense of something completely
un-understood.
In Southern Sweden a giant round rock lies on flat farmland, and the lovely
story my ancestors used to tell to explain how it got there came down to
this: a troll threw it there. As evidence, in a nearby castle, one can find
a horn and a pipe that come into the story. The horn contained what today
would be called chemical weapons, which burned the back of a horse when the
hero of the story was smart enough to dump it over his shoulder rather than
drinking it. Man and horse got away by riding across the furrows of a field,
because everyone knows that trolls must run back and forth the full length
of each furrow, which slows them down tremendously. The facts all fit. Some
fringe conspiracy theorists may question the very existence of trolls, but
such arguments need not be taken seriously.
A peace activist recently sent this video link [3] to a listserve with a
note stating that this video got the Syria story pretty much right. I had a
number of objections:
That the United States got involved in Syria in 2006 is revealed in
WikiLeaks. That the Pentagon was intent on overthrowing the Syrian
government in 2001 is revealed by the Donald Rumsfeld memo shown to Wesley
Clark, and by Tony Blair in 2010. So the story in this video of the U.S.
taking an interest -- purely humanitarian of course -- only in 2013 is
highly misleading.
That misdirection also facilitates leaving out of the story the U.S.
brushing aside of a peace process proposed by Russia in 2012.
The statement, presented in the video as fact, that Assad used chemical
weapons in that attack in 2013 is outrageous, as that has never been
established. What ought to have been said was that someone used chemical
weapons and Obama claimed falsely to have incontrovertible evidence that it
was Assad.
Quoting Obama on a 2013 proposal for a "targeted military strike" blatantly
avoids Seymour Hersh's report on the massive bombing campaign Obama had
planned.
The video's conclusion that because the war is complicated there is
therefore "just no end in sight" is reckless, as an end could be achieved if
some effort were put into it, beginning with an honest assessment of the
facts, and a retelling of 2013 as something other than "the United States
backing down."
What would an honest account about the same length as this video look like?
Perhaps like this:
Sad to say, the global policeman of humanitarian intent is no more real than
a troll or a "Khorasan Group."
At least as early as 2001, the United States had the Syrian government on a
list of governments targeted for overthrow.
In 2003, the United States threw the Middle East into a whole new sort of
turmoil with its invasion of Iraq. It created sectarian divisions, and
fueled and armed and facilitated the organization of violent groups.
At least as early as 2006, the United States had people in Syria working for
the overthrow of the government.
The U.S. response to the Arab Spring, and the U.S.-led overthrow of the
Libyan government made matters worse. ISIS was developing long before it
burst into the news, its leaders organizing in U.S. prison camps in Iraq.
The region was heavily armed with weapons from outside the region, primarily
from the United States. Three-quarters of weapons shipped to Middle-Eastern
governments were and are from the U.S. The weapons of the U.S. military
itself and of its allies, such as Saudi Arabia and Iraq, were intentionally
and accidentally supplied to new violent groups.
The Arab Spring in Syria was made violent almost immediately, with support
for violence from one side coming from the United States and its Gulf
dictatorship allies, and from the other side from Iran and Hezbollah and
Russia. The Free Syrian Army became one player in a civil and proxy and
regional war, recruiting fighters from around the region of "liberated"
disaster states. Al Qaeda became another player, as did the Kurds. The U.S.
government, however, remained focused on overthrowing the Syrian government,
and took no serious steps to halt support for al Qaeda and other groups from
U.S. Gulf allies or Turkey or Jordan (steps such as cutting off the flow of
weapons from the United States, imposing sanctions, negotiating a cease-fire
or arms embargo).
In 2012, Russia proposed a peace-process that would have included President
Bashar al-Assad stepping down, but the U.S. brushed the idea aside without
any serious consideration, suffering under the delusion that Assad would be
violently overthrown very soon, and preferring a violent solution as more
likely to remove the Russian influence and military -- and perhaps also due
to the general U.S. preference for violence driven by its weapons industry
corruption. Meanwhile the Iraqi government was bombing its own citizens with
weapons rushed to it by the U.S., violently fueling the coming ISIS assault.
And the U.S. had "ended" its military occupation of Iraq without ending it.
In 2013, the White House went public with plans to lob some unspecified
number of missiles into Syria, which was in the midst of a horrible civil
war already fueled in part by U.S. arms and training camps, as well as by
wealthy U.S. allies in the region and fighters emerging from other
U.S.-created disasters in the region. The excuse for the missiles was an
alleged killing of civilians, including children, with chemical weapons -- a
crime that President Barack Obama claimed to have certain proof had been
committed by the Syrian government. He never produced so much as a horn or a
pipe or a pleasant story as evidence.
Seymour Hersh would later reveal that the U.S. plan had been for a massive
bombing campaign. And Robert Parry, among others, would report on the
debunking of White House lies about the chemical weapons attack. While Syria
might have been guilty, the White House almost certainly did not know that,
and the U.S. public seemed to recognize that even such guilt would not
justify entering the war. A Russian proposal to eliminate Syria's chemical
weapons had already been known to the White House and been rejected. What
compelled Obama to accept diplomacy as the last resort in 2013 was the
public's and Congress's refusal to allow war. But Obama went right on arming
and training fighters in the Syrian war, and sending more troops back into
Iraq.
When ISIS burst onto the scene it openly begged the United States to attack
it, viewing this as a huge recruitment opportunity. The United States
obliged, attacking ISIS from the air in Iraq and Syria (and getting numerous
allies to do so as well), in addition to continuing its arming and training
operations -- now supposedly aimed at both ISIS and Assad. ISIS thrived, as
did various anti-Asad groups. Turkey joined in by attacking Kurds rather
than ISIS or Assad. Russia joined in by bombing ISIS and anti-government
groups in Syria. This dangerously increased already high tension between
Russia and the United States, as Russia intends to keep the Syrian
government from being overthrown, and the United States intends to overthrow
it -- and to bring in more allies, with the UK planning a vote on adding
their bombs to the mix.
Of course, a ceasefire, an arms embargo, actual aid and reparations,
regional disarmament and diplomacy, and the departure from the region of
foreign powers all remain possible if pursued.
David Swanson's books include "War Is A Lie [4]." He blogs at
davidswanson.org [5] and warisacrime.org [6] and works for the online
activist organization rootsaction.org [7]. He hosts Talk Nation Radio [8].
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [9]
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.[10]
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/world/us-has-been-pushing-overthrow-assad-syria-10-y
ears
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/david-swanson
[2] http://www.davidswanson.org
[3] https://www.facebook.com/Vox/videos/446925385495069/
[4] http://warisalie.org/
[5] http://davidswanson.org/
[6] http://warisacrime.org/
[7] http://rootsaction.org/
[8] http://davidswanson.org/taxonomy/term/41
[9] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on The US Has Been Pushing
to Overthrow Assad in Syria for 10 Years
[10] http://www.alternet.org/
[11] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B