Displaying items by tag: Syria

Tuesday, 23 March 2021 13:21

Syria: The price of resistance

Few nations in recent decades have been targeted by a superpower the way the United States of America has subjected Syria to various forms of attack. Apart from military assaults and acts of political subversion aimed at overthrowing the government in Damascus, the US has also imposed crippling economic sanctions upon Syria, sometimes regarded as the crucible of human civilisation. These sanctions which intensified in the last few years have impacted adversely upon a huge segment of the population. They culminated in the Caesar Act of 2020 which prohibits any country or entity from engaging in any economic activity with any firm or institution in Syria. For transgressing the Act, the violating party can also be subjected to punitive action by the US.
 
The wide-ranging sanctions would be one of the primary causes of the humanitarian crisis confronting the Syrian people today. Many of them are in dire need of the essentials of life. Making ends meet has become a major challenge for even the middle-class. It must be emphasised that before the mainly orchestrated unrest beginning in 2011, the government was able to provide for the basic needs of the population and managed one of the best-run health services in West Asia and North Africa (WANA) that provided free medical care to the poor and marginalised.
 
 
The media has also distorted the first bombing of the Biden administration on 25th February 2021 against a militia in Syria allegedly backed by Iran. Most newspapers and television networks claimed that the bombing was in retaliation to a February 15th rocket attack in northern Iraq by that Syrian militia which killed a contractor working with the US military. Since the US bombing took place on Syrian territory, the Syrian government rightly condemned it as a violation of its territorial integrity. China and Russia also condemned it from the perspective of national sovereignty. The western media as a whole side-stepped the sovereignty issue and instead presented the US bombing as a response to Syrian-Iranian aggression. Both Syria and Iran denied any involvement in the February 15 rocket attack arguing that they sought a period of calm to encourage as it were the Biden administration to restore the earlier nuclear deal with Iran which president Trump had unilaterally aborted.
 
But the Western media’s agenda against Syria is so heavily skewed that it will not entertain any other interpretation of the US’s military action. The power of this biased agenda became even more blatant recently when the media ignored completely a huge scandal involving the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons’ (OPCW) investigation into the alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria in 2018. When the OPCW published its final report in March 2019, some OPCW inspectors involved in the actual investigation raised fundamental and substantive questions about the report’s conclusions. These questions cast doubt about the claims of Western governments and the Western media of Syrian government involvement in the chemical attack. The inspectors wanted their views heard by the OPCW management which refused to grant them a hearing. Instead it chose to publicly condemn the inspectors for speaking out.
 
It is because of the unbecoming conduct of the OPCW leadership that five of its former inspectors and the first Director-General of the OPCW Jose Bustani decided to express their deep concern in a public statement recently. The statement has also been endorsed by outstanding public figures such as Daniel Ellsberg, Noam Chomsky, Richard Falk and John Avery Scales. It is telling that the statement has received so little attention from the media.
 
If news that is favourable to Syria within the context of the geopolitics of WANA is blocked out of the media, it is because those who dominate the region want it that way. The US, Israel and their allies do not want the truth about the interplay of politics and power in WANA to be known to the people. It is because Syria which is linked to Hezbollah and Iran has been consistent in opposing the hegemonic power of the US, Israel and their allies in WANA that it has had to pay such a high price. It is a price that the triumvirate of resistance is prepared to pay because it cherishes the independence and integrity of the citizens of WANA and the people of the world.
 
Dr Chandra Muzaffar is the president of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST)
 
Friday, 26 February 2016 11:47

Al Azhar urges tolerance between Muslim sects

Dr Shaikh Ahmad Al Tayyeb, the Grand Imam of Al Azhar, on Monday urged more tolerance among different Islamic schools and doctrines, saying it was the best way to combat terrorism. Speaking in Jakarta during a meeting of the Muslim Council of Elders and the Indonesian Council of Ulama, he said most of the wars taking place in Muslim countries today are a result of the Sunni-Shiite divide. “The greatest challenge in the Muslim world is that differences among Muslim doctrines are not tolerated and rather lead to violence. Education has contributed to this mistake,” Dr Al Tayyeb said. The Grand Imam of Al Azhar argued that to try to define a single and rigid Islam is a failure to understand the heterodoxy of the religion and the glory of the differences it encompasses....................Download the full article in pdf attachment (below)

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Thursday, 05 September 2013 00:00

Syria : A 12 point case against military intervention

The House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States of America should reject any form of US military intervention in Syria. Rejection would be a clear statement against war. It would be a lucid message on behalf of peace.

There are at least 12 reasons why the US Congress, and the people of the world, should adopt such a stand.

One, if the two houses represent the voice of the American people, it is significant that 50% of the people are against military intervention in Syria according to a NBC poll conducted on the 28-29 of August 2013. Only 42% support military action.............Download the full article in pdf attachment (below)

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Monday, 13 February 2012 12:02

UN shenanigans on Syria

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"Viscous nasty business" ... "aggressive pressure ... by US diplomats", "ferocious pressure on weaker non-permanent members", the "type of pressure [that] is very, very difficult for weaker countries ... to resist.''


That's how a former British diplomat at the United Nations, Carne Ross, described last September's UN showdown over the Palestinian Authority's bid for recognition for statehood. [1] "This is how power works." he said.


He might have added "money", for route to the UN Security Council ......... Download the full article in pdf attachment (below)

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