Imperialist powers manipulate Syrian peace plan to prepare for war

[The Northerner]

In recent days, the Western powers have stepped up efforts to foment civil war in Syria and prepare for imperialist intervention in this strategically important country. Media reports indicate increased fighting between Western-backed armed groups and the Syrian army, accompanied by terrorist attacks on government forces and civilians.

Heavy fighting has taken place in the Aleppo Governorate in northern Syria. The province has a 200-kilometer border with Turkey, where the Western-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) is based. According to the news agency AFP, “rebel” forces attacked military intelligence headquarters in Aleppo, the second largest city in Syria, and the FSA launched a dawn assault on the nearby Minakh Air Base.

In another attack at Hreitan, an officer of the Syrian army and two security personnel were killed early Saturday. In Idlib province, one of the FSA’s main strongholds near the Turkish border, Syrian forces shelled an area held by the FSA.

Clashes and terrorist attacks have also taken place in central Syria. In several districts in the city of Hama, fighting was reported between armed groups and the regular Syrian army. The official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported that 5 explosive devices planted by terrorist groups were dismantled in Homs. Over 100 people have reportedly been killed over the weekend, and thousands have fled over the Turkish border in recent days.

The US and its main NATO allies—France, Great Britain, Germany and Turkey—are leading the campaign to destabilize Syria. Together with the reactionary Persian Gulf monarchies, Saudi-Arabia and Qatar, they are funding and arming the so called “rebels.” During the April 1 “Friends of Syria” meeting in Istanbul, the Saudi and Qatari regimes officially announced they would put the Syrian “rebels” on their payroll, thus formalizing their status as a mercenary force of imperialism’s regional proxies.

Read more: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/apr2012/syri-a09.shtml


How much interference in other countries's affairs is enough?

In addition, couldn't the money wasted on destabilizing other countries's governments be spent more reasonably on domestic issues?

[Puregonzo1188]

1. You can't say the I-word when there's a Dem in office.

Didn't anyone tell you, when there's no longer a Republican in power American completely dismantles its empire and the basic structures of global capital change--temporarily....

[TheWraith]

4. Or maybe you simply shouldn't use it in an orgy of paranoid lunacy.

Which describes pretty much everything that comes out of WSWS and the OP's other favorite "news source" Pravda Today--err, Russia Today.

[Puregonzo1188]

15. Do you think the US is an imperialist power? And do you think an intervention in Syria would be

based on concern for anything other than maintaining US hegemony?

If a US client regime (like Pinochet's Chile, Suharto's Indonesia, Franco's Spain, Apartheid South Africa, or present day Saudi Arabia or Israel) was doing the same thing do you think we'd intervene? And if so, do you have any historical precedent for such an event occurring?

[Daniel537]

2. I'm fine with destabilizing a regime that is openly murdering thousands in the streets, and

supports terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. Destabilize away.

[The Northerner]

3. And what about the destabilization of the former Afghan regime from which the Taliban took power?

[Daniel537]

5. You mean the one that was run by the Soviets?

[The Northerner]

8. Exactly. Would you have supported destabilizing that regime at the time?

[Daniel537]

9. I would have supported destabilizing the Soviet troops in the country.

After all, that was imperialism, right?

[The Northerner]

13. Because Afghanistan's affairs are the US's affairs?

What justification is there for the US government deciding who should and shouldn't hold power in foreign countries?

[Daniel537]

16. Considering that the Soviet Union was a real threat, to the US and many other nations,

yes i would have been fine with trying to get them out of Afghanistan. Its not like they were spreading peace and harmony there anyway. Read up on the mass slaughter they leveled on entire villages.

[The Northerner]

17. So, as long another country is perceived as a threat then interfering others affairs is acceptable?

If that's the case then the US government could justify destabilizing any foreign government it wants.

Wasn't that the same justification for invading and occupying Iraq? Maybe the same argument could apply to Iran? Somalia? North Korea? Venezuela? etc.?

[Daniel537]

19. I said real threat, not perceived.

The USSR was real, had real WMDs, and invaded any nation it so desired just to expand its totalitarian ideology all the while needlessly slaughtering millions. The world is much better off with it in the ash heap of history.

[The Northerner]

22. Oh, ok, as a long as a country is a "threat" and has WMDs it's acceptable to warmonger with them?

What about diplomacy? Sure, it's a long and difficult option but it has worked before.

In addition, what about the ulterior motives of militarily "helping" other countries? Doesn't that usually lead to the subjugation of other countries, installation of puppet regimes, or gradually realizing that the newer regime is just as bad if not worse?

[Daniel537]

25. Warmonger? Lol.

The USSR would probably still be here if they didn't "warmonger". Invading sovereign nations like Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Afghanistan to spread an ideology can do that to you. And of course i support diplomacy, but do you think Assad cares about diplomacy? The North Korean regime certainly doesn't, even though the US provides them with tons of aid.

[The Northerner]

30. So, the countless foreign mujahideen who volunteered to fight the Soviets couldn't win?

And yes, providing military aid to one side is proxy warmongering and no better than direct warmongering.

The problems in Syria and North Korea should be managed by the CITIZENS of those countries.

It's arrogant, condescending, and deceitful for any country to impose its will upon them under the guise of "assistance", which has been the biggest excuse for imperialism and regime change.

[Daniel537]

32. Well we agree to disagree.

I'm ok with helping destroy a mass-murdering totalitarian dictatorship, and your not. So be it.

[The Northerner]

43. Actually, I prefer that the Syrians handle their own affairs without imperialistic interference

in their country while you're OK with imperialists supposedly "helping" the Syrian people likely due to ulterior motives.

[Daniel537]

47. Some are ok with mass murder and genocide, others are not.

To each his own. I'm just glad Pres. Obama refused to watch the residents of Benghazi be slaughtered. I just wish he would do the same in Syria.

[Puregonzo1188]

24. While I agree with you the USSR invasion of Afghanistan was imperialistic, you are completely

clueless as to any sort of historic facts concerning Afghanistan (which means perhaps you should stop attempting to determine the affairs of other peoples' who's histories you are completely ignorant of).

The US began supporting destabilizing forces BEFORE the Soviet invasion, in the hopes of provoking them to invade and producing a "Soviet Vietnam." The Soviet's invaded not because they were concerned with Afghan self-determination (much like their main imperial rival the US they had nothing but contempt for self-determination and democracy), but because they didn't want to lose a friendly regime and access to a coastline. The Soviet's had very little interest in "expanding" their "totalitarian ideology" and was even willing to suppress Communist movements or support regimes that did so if it was in line with the geopolitical interests (like any imperial power would). You might be interested in reading George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia for his description and explanation of the Soviet suppression of leftist movements of Spain or any actual history.

Afghanistan was certainly the victim of American and Soviet imperialism.

[The Northerner]

26. +100 I could not agree more.

[Daniel537]

27. lol, so the US provoked the Soviets to invade, huh?

Please. They made their choice and had to deal with the consequences. You seem to have a problem with a mass-murdering dictatorship imploding, me not so much.

[Puregonzo1188]

31. Take it up with Brzezinski, Cater's National Security Advisor, since it's his claim not mine.

You don't deny that the US involvement in Afghanistan predated the Soviet intervention?

[RZM]

38. My opnion has always been that Brzezinski has engaged in a bit too much self-congratulation here

I'm not saying there wasn't a US role, I'm just saying that he has a major reason to exaggerate its effects and importance. Doing so makes it look like he and his policies were instrumental to bringing down the USSR. As I mentioned above, the main factors for the Soviet invasion were there in the first place anyway.

[RZM]

35. Uhh, what is this coastline you speak of? Afghanistan in landlocked

The rest of your assessment isn't entirely correct either.

The Communists came to power in Afghanistan in a coup in 1978. They were split into two bitterly hostile factions that couldn't get along at all. In addition, they faced an Islamic insurgency in the countryside and weren't doing a very good job at getting a handle on it. When one of the factions made a few noises about possibly being open to working with the West, the Soviets intervened in this internal dispute, wiping out the leadership of the suspect faction and fully backing the other. They also lent direct military assistance to the government in the fight against the insurgency.

So part of the reason was to settle this internal dispute. The insurgency was another major reason for the invasion. Obviously the Soviets knew that the Afghan government needed help against the insurgency to be viable, but the Soviets had their own reasons as well. Soviet Central Asia bordered Afghanistan and was/is a predominantly Muslim area. The Soviets worried that anti-Soviet sentiment could creep in from an unstable Afghanistan where Islamic insurgents were running wild and openly challenging a Communist government.

As for the US role, it's pretty hard to argue that they made all of this happen. I've never seen much evidence that pre-1979 US activities there were all that substantial. In any case, even without outside meddling, you still would have had the Khalq/Parcham dispute and you still would have had an insurgency in the countryside. So the Soviet reasons for intervening still would have been there.

[Puregonzo1188]

49. I don't really dispute much of that and am aware of the internal dispute within Afghanistan prior

to the invasion.

My point was that both the Soviet Union and the US intervened in Afghanistan for reasons pertaining to their self-interest, not an attempt to spread some sort of ideology or defend self-determination or what not.

[Daniel537]

52. What's wrong with self-interest?

Of course its in our interest to see a communist dictatorship with thousands of nukes implode.

[Puregonzo1188]

55. I was referring to intervening in Afghanistan. Surely you don't get to use another country and it's

people as the staging ground for a proxy war out of self-interests do you?

And how many nuclear weapons do we have? How many wars of aggression have we waged? How many states have used nukes?

[Daniel537]

57. No, you don't get to use it as a staging ground.

Somebody should have told the Soviets that, because apparently they didn't get the memo. And you'll have to excuse me if i think its better for us to have nukes than a thugocracy like the USSR, or North Korea for that matter.

[Puregonzo1188]

60. How many wars of aggression has the US waged?

[Daniel537]

62. Well then i guess that excuses the Soviets?

"Hey, we've done bad stuff too, so go ahead and do the same." Yeah, i don't subscribe to that idea.

[RZM]

63. States almost always do that

Self-interest is usually why they are in the game. And ideology IS self-interest. That was especially true during the Cold War. The Soviets understood that a stable, Communist Afghanistan was a good thing for them. The US understood that it wasn't. Same story, different place.

We've now had over 20 years to assess the Soviet side of the Cold War by combing the Soviet archives (or at least the parts that the Russian government keeps open). And we've learned that ideology mattered a whole lot. The historians who used to argue that the USSR was just another power-player and that ideology was incidental haven't really fared all that well.

Now, there were always exceptions to that. The Soviets were always willing to hold back from strongly supporting Communist regimes when they didn't feel it was in their best interests. Yemen would be a case in point. When Yemen was split between the Communist south and the non-Communist north, the Soviets were careful to not appear too supportive of the PDRY (the Communists) and maintained good relations with the YAR (the non-Communists).

In a private moment, Reagan once asked the Soviet ambassador to the US whether he was 'really' a Communist or just going through the motions. He claimed that he really was. The ambassador also says that he brought up the same thing with Brezhnev and that Brezhnev admitted that ideology would sometimes get in the way of Soviet interests as a great power, but there was no way around it because it was important to have genuine belief in the system.

[Puregonzo1188]

10. Could you explain to me why Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist and Israel is not?

I mean Hamas's rockets, which certainly qualify as a war crime since they lack sophisticated mechanism of targeting to distinguish between civilian and non-civillian targets (some would argue this is an inherent bias in international law against the powerless and national liberation movements), have killed less than 30 people in an over ten years--a single Israeli airstrike (or US drone strike) kills more people than that in a few hours.

Not to mention that Israel is a colonial-settler state based on ethnic cleansing and apartheid.

What should happen to the US for backing them?

[Daniel537]

12. Hamas and Hezbollah's goals are the destruction of an entire people's, aka genocide.

Israel certainly doesn't have clean hands in the Israeli-Arab conflict, but if the Arab states would simply accept just one of the many peace plans they have proposed, we might not be having this conversation. That and the fact that Israel is a democratic state whereas Gaza and Syria are dictatorships with no respect for any human rights, Arab or Jewish.

[Puregonzo1188]

18. If Israel is a democratic state why are refugees not allowed to return to their homes, but someone

with no connection to the region, other than being ethnically Jewish, can come to Israel, get citizenship, and move into their home?

Why is that although Israel maintains state power in all of historic Palestine (let's be honest about the Occupied Territories) that some people living in the OPT and subject to Israeli state power are not allowed to vote, but others are--solely because they denied citizenship based on their ethnicity and place of origin?

How is that a democracy? You notice I wont be defending Syria as a democracy, but I also wont be making such nonsensical claims about Israel.

As far, as Hamas and Hezbollah wanting the destruction of an entire people, i.e. genocide--you must surely be joking. Hamas has said they are willing to accept an Israeli state based on '67 borders, just not a Jewish state since you know 20% of the population of Israel is Palestinians with Israeli citizens and such a move would be codifying racism.

I don't particularly like Hamas or Hezbollah for a whole host of serious reasons, but accusing them of genocide and wanting to destroy an entire people is inflammatory and ignorant.

[Daniel537]

21. I'm not here to defend everything Israel, or the Arab states do...

but to say Israel isn't a democracy is ludicrous. Show me another state in the ME that has as much tolerance for womens rights, gay rights, and minority rights. As you said, 1 million Arabs live in Israel. Ask them if they would rather live in Gaza under the reign of Hamas, or with lil' Assad in Syria? Please. Hamas interested in peace? Tell them to cut the crap with the rockets launched against Sderot.

[Puregonzo1188]

28. Hamas, by Israel's own admission, did "cut the crap with the rockets" during the ceasefire.

Israel never held up it's end of the agreement to lift the blockade and eventually broke the ceasefire, at which point Hamas resumed rockets. To this day rockets have killed less than 30 people in an 11 year period. Compare this the record of Israel or even the United States.

And I never denied that Israel had "gay rights, or women's rights." I said it was a democracy because it controlled a large land mass and granted different rights and privileges to people within the same territory (and those who have legal right to live there, but were ethnically cleansed).

Gay rights or women's rights doesn't change that fact. What you are doing is changing the topic and is part of specific coordinated campaign of propaganda called "pinkwashing" to do just that.

As a gay male, I do not appreciate you attempting to use my identity to legitimate apartheid, colonialsm, racism, and war crimes. You owe me a personal apology for doing so.

[Daniel537]

29. I don't owe you a damn thing, bro.

Your the one making apologies for 2 theocratic, terrorist groups, along with the Soviet Union, lol. It doesn't matter one bit whether the rockets have killed 30 people or 3, anyone who launches an unprovoked attack on a sovereign nation must deal with the consequences.

[Puregonzo1188]

34. I agree that anyone who launches an launches an unprovoked attack on a sovereign nation must deal

with the consequences. When are we holding the US and Israel accountable?

[Daniel537]

39. Accountable by whom?

I'm not asking for some international tribunal here. Like i said, if Hamas attacks Israel unprovoked, or even vice versa, the other side must deal with the military consequences.

[Puregonzo1188]

42. I believe war crimes should prosecuted. That would include the use of Qassam rockets.

[Daniel537]

45. I agree.

Israel should arrest/kill those responsible.

[Puregonzo1188]

50. I said international tribunal. Not extrajudicial executions. Who is going to arrest Israeli and US

war criminals, who are guilty of far worse crimes than Hamas.

[Daniel537]

53. Far worse? Lol.

Tell me this. Who's going to hold Hamas accountable for its extrajudicial executions of its fellow Palestinians? Something tells me it won't be an international tribunal.

[provis99]

46. well that's a damn lie.

You are perfectly allright with Israel attacking whoever it wants, without consequences. That much has been proven in your previous posts.

[Daniel537]

48. lol, whatever you say, boss.

[Puregonzo1188]

51. Whatever he says? Whatever you say.

Do you believe Israel has committed war crimes? Not Hamas, no one is disputing that.


Israel.

And if so, what should the consequences be?


Simple yes or no question.

[RZM]

6. Looks like WSWS is all about some Assad

Nice touch putting 'rebels' in quotes and calling them 'a mercenary force of imperialism's regional proxies.'

[Daniel537]

7. I wonder if they consider Assad to be an imprialist for arming Hamas and Hezbollah?

Yeah, don't think so.

[Puregonzo1188]

11. What do you think of the US arming Israel?

[Daniel537]

14. I'm ok with giving them certain weapons, as long as they don't do like Hamas and Hezbollah

and declare their intentions to be the wiping out of an entire people. If that happens, by all means i'll call my congressmen and Senator and tell them to stop aiding Israel. Until then, its just one nation voluntarily aiding another.

[Puregonzo1188]

20. You are aware that Amnesty International has called for an arms-embargo against both Israel and

Hamas?

Israel was an attempt to establish a Jewish-state in a territory with a minority Jewish population. How does one go about that? If not by wiping out an entire people, certainly be removing them correct?

[Daniel537]

23. And they are free to call for such an embargo.

Likewise, i am free to not call for it. As for removing an entire population, maybe you should remember that it was the Arab states that rejected the partition plan, which never included removing anybody from anywhere.

[Puregonzo1188]

33. It was the Palestinians who rejected to losing their land, yes. Given that they owned 97% of the

land and were receiving a partition of 46% that seems quite reasonable and within their rights

Here's a map of Palestinian land over time.




Now tell me about removing an entire population again?

[Daniel537]

36. That '47 plan sure looks better than what they have now, don't you think?

Like i said, no Arab or Jew was forced to leave either state. Hence, why 1 million Arabs still live in Israel.

[Puregonzo1188]

40. The United Nations disagrees with you. You might recall the issue of refugees from the '48 war, you

might even have heard of Deir Yassin.


Seriously, are you really defending expelling people from their lands and colonizing them? Are you saying Palestinians chose to vacate the land that is now settlements?

[Daniel537]

44. So your going from the '47 plan to the '48 war now?

Last i checked Israel didn't attack seven Arab states at once. And if they truly wanted all the Arabs out there wouldn't have been a single one left, yet there's still 1 million. By all means, please explain why they've yet to act on that if their so interested in expelling all the Arabs?

[Puregonzo1188]

54. The war started before the intervention by Arab states. Two-thirds of Palestinian refugees were

produced before the first Arab state intervened.

Given that you support humanitarian intervention, I would think you would support the Arab states intervening, at the request of the Palestinian population, in order to put an end to ethnic cleansing.

Your positions and their contradictions confuse me.

[Daniel537]

56. The Arab states intervened to stop Jews from emigrating, not to protect Palestinians.

Hell just look at how they treat them in other Arab countries. Most don't even give them legal status. This myth of ethnic cleansing is ludicrous. Arab politicians told the Palestinians to leave and they would eventually throw out the Jews. That didn't work so well.

[Puregonzo1188]

58. You know there was a civil war before the Arab intervention? You know refugees are produced by wars?

You know about the Zionist militias and the villages they destroyed? You know what Deir Yassin was? You know they planted trees over top of abandoned villages right? You know many of them are still there completely vacate?

And you will not here me defend the treatment of Palestinian refugees by the Arab states. You will not here me defend the Arab states at all or any state for that matter. Unlike you, I don't fetishise nation-states so could you please drop that strawman now? It's gotten old over the course of this thread.

[Daniel537]

61. You know of what the Great Arab Revolt was?

Arab Higher Committee? Hajj Amin al-Husayni? See, we could play this game all day. And i don't "fetishise" Israel, or any other nation, i merely analyze its history and what it has to deal with today.

[cali]

59. subtle, they ain't

it's really pretty amusing in a sick way.

[cali]

37. wowzer that is some dogshit propaganda there, honey.

[Daniel537]

41. Its teh globalists.