{"id":247706,"date":"2016-06-04T02:28:12","date_gmt":"2016-06-04T02:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=247706"},"modified":"2016-06-04T15:29:57","modified_gmt":"2016-06-04T15:29:57","slug":"syrians-see-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/syrians-see-war\/","title":{"rendered":"What Most Syrians See of Their War"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse<\/span><\/p>\n

Here is a video of what most Syrians are seeing and experiencing of the war, and it\u2019s titled \u201cLiving in the crosshairs, May 29th 2016 ENG SUBS\u201d (the \u201cENG SUBS\u201d means \u201cEnglish subtitles\u201d).<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

It refers to attackers being the \u201cFree Syrian Army\u201d<\/span><\/a> (who were founded by Riad al-Asaad<\/span><\/a>, no relation to Bashar al-Assad \u2014 and spelled and pronounced differently \u2014 and he was a proponent of a fundamentalist Sunni Syrian constitution). It also refers to (and shows victims of) the \u201ccanisters\u201d which the FSA is firing westward, from the Aleppo city area that the FSA controls, into the city\u2019s \u201cMidan District,\u201d which is controlled by the Syrian government.<\/span><\/p>\n

The FSA is America\u2019s chosen group of fighters (Barack Obama\u2019s terms for them are \u2018the moderate opposition\u2019 and \u2018moderate rebels\u2019<\/span><\/a>, but they\u2019re just the people that the U.S. government overtly back<\/span><\/a> \u2014 not back covertly like Syria\u2019s branch of Al Qaeda and some other groups). All these groups are trying to overthrow the Syrian government, and, though they often cooperate with one-another, like with Al Qaeda in Syria (called \u201cAl Nusra\u201d), and ISIS (also called \u201cISIL\u201d and “Daesh\u201d), the groups also occasionally attack each other, because each of the groups is trying to increase its territory and wants to emerge victorious to control all of Syria, or of as much of Syria as possible, in the final settlement.<\/span><\/p>\n

Virtually all members of each one of these groups are jihadists, but different foreign countries are backing different ones of these groups, and America\u2019s preferred group happens to be the FSA \u2014 the group that\u2019s firing these \u201ccanisters.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

At 1:46 in the video, the flag of the \u201cSultan Murad Faction\u201d is being flown; at 1:50\u00a0 <\/span>it\u2019s the flag of Al Nusra. So, this time the groups are all working together, because of their shared goal of conquering the Syrian government in the Midan District, which they\u2019ve apparently just done here, at least for the time being. The Sultan Murad group are backed by Turkey<\/span><\/a> (which, under Erdogan, has become a fundamentalist-Sunni country, like the Arab monarchies are, but without the oil). Al Qaeda is mainly backed by the Sauds<\/span><\/a>, U.S. allies against Assad.<\/span><\/p>\n

Each of these groups is bankrolled by somewhat different financial interests, but all of those interests are united in their desire to overthrow the non<\/i>-sectarian government that has been ruling in Syria, and that the U.S. CIA has been trying, ever since 1949, to overthrow<\/span><\/a> and replace by a fundamentalist Sunni government (which will favor the fundamentalist-Sunni Sauds, our allies). Though the majority of Syrians have always supported a non<\/i>-sectarian Syria, various factions of Sunni Islam in fundamentalist-Sunni foreign countries have (especially after the severe 2007-2010 drought in Syria<\/span><\/a>, and the consequent intense \u201cArab Spring\u201d anti-government movement in Syria during 2011<\/span><\/a>) supplied weapons and fighters to jihadists to overthrow Assad, and they also finance propaganda to recruit jihadists from all around the world, to fight in Syria and maybe become heavenly martyrs in this \u2018holy war\u2019 or jihad, against the \u2018infidel\u2019 non<\/i>-sectarian Syrian government, which, moreover, is led by the Shiite<\/i> Bashar al-Assad \u2014 and all<\/i> Shiites should be killed, according to such fundamentalist Sunni teachings (which originate in, and are led by, Saudi Arabia).<\/span><\/p>\n

The United States is allied here actually with the Saud family who own Saudi Arabia, and with their friends the Thani family who own Qatar, and also with their friends the Sabah family who own Kuwait, and also with the six royal families who own UAE; and all of these fundamentalist-Sunni royal families are aiming to supply their oil and gas, and pipelines for oil and gas, selling into the world\u2019s largest energy-market, Europe. Those pipelines would be built through Syria, which is the reason why the U.S. and its Gulf-state allies want to take Syria over, or at least to conquer enough of a strip through what today is Syria, so as to enable construction of these pipelines into Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whereas America\u2019s goal in this is mainly to strangle Russia, which is the biggest current supplier of oil and gas into the European market, the main goal of the royal Arab families is to expand their markets, to grab a bigger share of Europe\u2019s energy sales. Pipelined oil and gas tends to be cheaper and therefore more cost-competitive than trucked or shipped oil and gas; so, this is a \u201cpipeline war,\u201d to expand markets.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s what the Syrian war is all about. Whereas for America it\u2019s to conquer Russia; for the Arab royals, it\u2019s to supply a bigger share of Europe\u2019s energy-imports. For Turkey, it\u2019s to grab a share of the oil-sales stolen by these jihadists, oil from Iraq and Syria, and also to serve within NATO as the agents of royal Arab families, a bridge between NATO and the Gulf Cooperation Council<\/span><\/a>. That bridge is a valuable and profitable function to fulfill.<\/span><\/p>\n

The millions of refugees that are being produced by this war, many of whom are fleeing to Europe, are just the results, basically, of this land-clearing operation in Syria, to get rid of the people who are supporting the current Syrian government, which is allied with Russia, instead of with the U.S. and its allies.<\/span><\/p>\n

So: those \u201ccanisters\u201d are intended to terrify enough Syrians to flee, so that (it\u2019s hoped) enough land can be cleared of population, in order for the desired pipelines to be built.<\/span><\/p>\n

And Syrians know this. Consequently, not only are the various jihadist groups despised by from two-thirds to around 80% of the Syrian public, but at least 55% of Syrians would vote for Bashar al-Assad to be the country\u2019s leader, in any free and fair election \u2014 and Obama knows this, which is the reason why he has strenuously opposed democracy in Syria, and even Ban ki-Moon has (though very quietly) condemned Obama\u2019s position that rejects democracy in Syria. Furthermore, the Syrian people overwhelmingly (by 82%, to be exact) cite the U.S. as being the main source of the immense suffering they face.<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

In other words: terrorizing the population is good, not bad, from the standpoint of the U.S. and its allies \u2014 and many Syrians know this. But the few anti-Assad fighters who loathe ISIS and who have been praised by the U.S. government don\u2019t necessarily know or understand this. The few anti-Assad fighters who, for whatever reason (be it that they\u2019re competing against ISIS, or maybe even that they genuinely detest ISIS) have tried to help the U.S. CIA against ISIS, have even been stunned to find the U.S. government uninterested<\/span><\/a>. It doesn\u2019t make sense to them.<\/span><\/p>\n

To clear the land, terror is good, not bad; the CIA mustn\u2019t get in the way, and they don\u2019t. It\u2019s one reason why those FSA fighters who had taken seriously the U.S. government\u2019s anti-ISIS rhetoric, have, in many cases, subsequently become disillusioned, and cooperate now with al-Nusra and other such groups, which are only marginally less extremist than ISIS is. At least ISIS isn\u2019t lying to them, like the U.S. government does.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since the European governments are allied with the U.S., those governments are torn about what to do with the refugees that the U.S.-and-allied operation is producing (and is intended to produce). At least up till now, far more Europeans hate the refugees than hate the U.S. government, and so the problem is merely a political annoyance to EU leaders, not yet a cause for breakup of the Western Alliance (European countries’ alliance with the U.S. government), which still seems strong, and which is still strongly supported by Europeans (including even by the ones who hate these refugees \u2014 refugees who are result<\/i> of that very alliance, which they support).<\/span><\/p>\n

Though this land-clearing operation creates a nuisance in Europe, it\u2019s far more than that, a life-and-death matter, in Syria. For Arab aristocracies, it\u2019s being done mainly for business (it\u2019s not about ideology, except Sunni versus Shia); but for America\u2019s aristocracy, it\u2019s mainly for power: conquering Russia, by getting rid of Russia\u2019s allies, surrounding Russia, then going in for the kill \u2014 unless the Russian government first submits and posts a white flag of surrender (in which case the West will take over Russia\u2019s oil and gas etc., \u2018peacefully\u2019).<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps the Western Alliance will continue as it is. But maybe it won\u2019t. For the millions of Syrians in the midst of the hell that Washington and its allies are causing there, a lot might depend on whether it will continue as it is. Without the Western Alliance, the foreign jihadists who are destroying their country would have to leave. Those jihadists are utterly dependent upon the support of Barack Obama, King Saud, Tayyip Erdogan, Angela Merkel, and the other leaders of the Western Alliance. None of those leaders can continue this ongoing invasion of Syria, without the continuing support of their Western comrades. The destruction of Syria is a team-effort. But maybe the team will fall apart before it can achieve the type of victory that\u2019s required for real \u2018success\u2019. Which side will give up this war first?<\/span><\/p>\n

One thing\u2019s for sure: What Syrians see of their war is not going to endear them to The West. And this also means: it\u2019s not going to endear them to Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United States. Will it endear them to the EU? Certainly not if the EU turns them away as refugees. However, if the EU separates from the U.S., then maybe, just maybe, there can emerge favorable relations between Europe and the secular Arabs who have long constituted the majority of Syrians. The problem for them has been the U.S. government and the fundamentalist Sunni Arab royal families. The question then is: Will Europeans continue to be allied with them? Or, if not, then how soon will the Western Alliance break up?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of\u00a0 They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of<\/span> \u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse Here is a video of what most Syrians are seeing and experiencing of the war, and it\u2019s titled \u201cLiving in the crosshairs, May 29th 2016 ENG SUBS\u201d (the \u201cENG SUBS\u201d means \u201cEnglish subtitles\u201d). It refers to attackers being the \u201cFree Syrian Army\u201d (who were founded by Riad al-Asaad, no relation to Bashar al-Assad […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":247711,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,461,18],"tags":[115,30,32,96,535,907,59,1023,524,754,55,523,76,40,1024],"class_list":{"0":"post-247706","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-editorials","9":"category-latest-news","10":"tag-barack-obama","11":"tag-big-brother","12":"tag-cia","13":"tag-cover-up","14":"tag-global-news","15":"tag-isis","16":"tag-military","17":"tag-nuclear","18":"tag-russia","19":"tag-syria","20":"tag-uk-news","21":"tag-ukraine","22":"tag-warfare","23":"tag-white-house","24":"tag-ww3"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}