By Richard Walker
A push for intervention in Syria by Israel and its lackeys in Washington risks inviting disaster and creating another violent and chaotic country.
In a mirror image of the lead-up to the wars in Iraq and Libya, there has been an ongoing propaganda campaign aimed at convincing the American public the Syrian government has not only been committing mass murder but has been using chemical weapons against rebels. The argument is that it poses a threat to the Middle East region and beyond. In the opinion of neocons and liberals alike, the Syrian regime has crossed a red line.
Missing in all of this is the fact that mainstream media reports of massacres by government forces have come almost exclusively from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has been exposed as a one-man show operated by a Syrian exile Rami Abdul Rahman in Coventry, England.
The campaign for direct United States and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) involvement in Syria was recently given impetus by claims government forces led by Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime were using sarin gas against its enemies. Those enemies include anti-Western militias determined to create a new Syria under radical Islamic law. Such a state would not only pose a major threat to the Christian population but also to Alawites, whom the Sunnis regard as heretics.
Pro-Israel legislators on Capitol Hill were quick to seize on reports of sarin gas use even though Israeli Brigadier General Itai Brun, who originally promoted the claims, was unable to provide any proof that this actually occurred. But that did not stop Secretary of State John Kerry from heading to Europe to state that it was time for NATO to have a plan in place to deal with Syria.
Brun’s evidence was flimsy at best, but he pointed to the fact that the British and French agreed with him. He neglected to mention the British and French have been at the forefront of trying to get rid of Assad and have armed anti-Assad militias and helped train them in Jordan and Turkey. The last time the Assad regime was charged with using chemical weapons, it turned out it was militias employing a homemade weapon comprised of a readily available industrial chlorine-based agent.
The Assad government has denied using sarin gas, and Russia made it clear to D.C. it believes the denial. Russia has also expressed dismay that America has been supporting radical and violent Islamic groups in Syria—some of the same groups the U.S. has been battling in Iraq. If these zealous fighters were to seize power, they could get their hands on some real chemical weapons.
An intelligence source in Moscow, who did not want to be named, told this newspaper, the obvious danger in Syria can be seen in light of what happened when Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s administration collapsed: Many of the regime’s weapons fell into the hands of thugs inside and outside of Libya. Syria has much more advanced weapons.
One of the notable things about the calls for intervention is that liberals, in going after Assad, are copying the playbook of the neocons, who lied about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Ten years later, Iraq is still a mess, plagued by violence and mass bombings.
Richard Walker is the pen name of a former N.Y. news producer.
