Saturday, September 24, 2016

Syria – Aleppo – How many face indiscriminate bombing while the world in 2016 - SIMPLY LOOKS ON


I am completely lost for words, the Syrian Army simply pounds Aleppo indiscriminately. Does anyone question this word indiscriminate, except for the Syrian Govt. or the Russians? Ditto with the Russian or Syrian Air Force or both!


Reminds me of the Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip where people were hold up between the sea in a tiny strip of land, and the world just could not stop it, until they had simply raised most of the area to rubble. Israel HAS NOT BEEN held accountable, so much so that Netanyahu meets Clinton and Trump tomorrow, such is the esteem with which this monster is treated by the Americans.

So does it surprise you that the butcher Assad of Syria has taken leaf out of Netanyahu’s book and he is doing the same to his own citizens, where as in Netanyahu’s case it is the recent immigrants to Israel who were killing the longtime residents of Palestine. I am merely illustrating the parallels, otherwise, only Assad is pictured as the butcher of Aleppo, with Putin’s ammunition, planes and bombs of every sort.

Just like the Israelis believe it is their right to bomb the arrogant Gazans into submission, Assad believes they are terrorists, with many foreign powers helping them, who should also be eliminated, and the peace restored. Why one law for Assad and one for Netanyahu? I don’t know.

Be that as it may, we have now lost the wood from the trees in Syria. Who is who? Assad believes it is his right to restore Syria, by simply eliminating the rebels, which he now with added resolve, and Russian assistance believes is the final battle, to take control of the main stronghold of the rebels in Aleppo, when even parts of Damascus is still rebel held.

Who are these rebels, and what are they fighting for? Of course they are not the Alawites of Syria a minority including Assad who presumably have their backs to the wall as a small Shiite minority in Syria, who wish to control the country and are ready to fight to the death to preserve this, as they see that once Assad is beaten the Alawite sect will be banished from Syria, and there will be hardly ANY country that will take them. They are the merchants and business elite in Syria, who have been favored by the Regime for 50 years, and ARE NOT ready to give up without a fight to the death. 

I don’t know why the Russians have allied themselves with them, but they have, and that has given them the strength to have carried out this war for so long. Other leaders without Russian help would have capitulated and left a long time ago. Assad was offered a way to leave Syria with his family, to prevent total destruction of this Country, but has refused firmly believing in his destiny that he can survive and overcome, the natural behavior from the beginning of time of a megalomaniacal dictator, like we have seen throughout the 20th Century.

It must be said that the US made a political decision NOT to enter the conflict, except through the CIA, helping to arm the rebels and give them the wherewithal to fight the Regime. This has emboldened Russia to take the battle to the rebels, to show they can beat the USA in battle. So is it right that due to US inaction, the innocent Syrians have suffered. Yes, the Assad regime was deeply unpopular for a long time, and they ruled with fear because he had the power to enforce his dictat.

COMPARISONS WITH THE SRI LANKAN CONFLICT

Mahinda Rajapakse believed he can win the war MILITARILY. He had the help of the Terrorist regimes of Israel and Pakistan, as well as China to whom he had sold Sri Lanka off. So he was able to procure the arms on favorable terms to fight the war to the end, DESPITE western efforts, pressured by the million strong Diaspora, in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, France and Germany as the main havens, who only sat and watched the unfolding crisis, impotent to act.

Whatever the justification, that the Tamils had over 70 years of discrimination, that led Prabarkaran to take up arms, funded primarily by the hugely wealthy Diaspora, engaged in international gun running, drug dealing and extortion allowed the funds to fight for the long term. This had NOT been stopped by the host Countries where this took place, and so permitted them to use young Tamils in the North, conscripts more like, and brainwash them to be suicide bombers and trained killers. This turned the Civil War into a no holds barred war outside the rules of the Geneva Conventions where massacres on both sides took place on a daily basis.

The Elam War IV finally cleared the whole Country of the rebels, by a full scale all out conventional war, that Prabarkaran may have thought he could win, which finally in May of 2009, cornered the rebels AND the 330,000 willing and unwilling civilians they herded with them to the TINY strip of land in Mullaitivu, where the last of the heavy shelling took place to BOMB THEM INTO SUBMISSION.

Whatever the level of indiscriminate shelling, where the SL Forces HAD the coordinates of the Hospitals and Civilian areas, due to the fighters in civilian clothing, hiding amongst the civilian population, which no one even today doubts, justified some of the commanders to take risks, and use heavy artillery that the SL Govt. promised NOT to use, to hasten the closure of the war due to the rebel intransigence in NOT surrendering when they were really cornered.

This is where the parallels end. Were these rebels freedom fighters, trying to free Sri Lanka from a brutal regime? Yes there was a brutal dictator in power. However they did not want to free Sri Lanka, they wanted their own separate state, which any Sri Lankan will tell you that no matter what the circumstances are, it is NOT an option, to divide a small country. If one needs a latter day example just look at the stalemate in Cyprus today. UNRESOLEVED STALEMATE of a divided island amongst ethnic lines!

The soldiers, most of whom were from very poor families, where their paycheck fed their whole extended families, they saw salvation in the Forces. They therefore firmly believed, that unless they WON the MILITARY war, the politicians will come to some face saving settlement, which will result in a few months of ceasefire, negating the huge sacrifice they had made to get there, and the war will just continue.

In hindsight, NO ONE really believes, had a ceasefire AT THAT POINT been agreed to, allowing disarming of the rebels, NOT IMPRISONING THEM, and giving their territory back, was the answer AT THAT TIME. If the UN or any other power believed it, they are DEAD WRONG.

While the Diaspora was desperately attempting to arrange a UN brokered ceasefire, there was NO OPTION but to fight to the end, and suffer COLLATERAL DAMAGE, meaning civilian casualties, to finish it off, before a forced ceasefire! Yes atrocities occurred ON BOTH sides, but the relative level of the Govt. forces was a drop in the ocean compared to that of the rebels, but they were all annihilated, and NOT available to go to a war crimes tribunal.

The implication being, that IT WAS the SL Forces who therefore MUST be held accountable for ANY cold blooded killings of a few surrendering rebels. The reason this figure of 40,000 unlawful killings is still mentioned is due to the immense power of the Tamil Diaspora, and NOT based on any reality, with the most likely figure available being less than 10,000, but how it splits between civilian and rebel is hard to distinguish as most rebels changed into Civvies in the end to mingle with the surrendering masses, and the troops were worried about hidden suicide carders amongst them, when they were nervously checking the surrendering people, who HAD to be initially housed in temporary camps, due to the inability to distinguish between innocent and guilty!

It is simply this Diaspora, that has enabled this problem to go on for so long, and if Mahinda Rajapakse was at fault, it was his bloody mindedness, to confront the UN HRC with refusal to engage in the basic, closure procedures, that he promised Ban Ki Moon, in June 2009. If he did it immediately the issue would have been done and dusted. THE REASON he did not was HIS OWN POLITICAL SURVIVAL. That is something I blame the Diaspora for as they enabled Mahinda Rajapakse a few more lives until his final downfall on January 2015! He cleverly leveraged the Diaspora attack, and the resulting UN HRC determinations, to galvanize the masses into believing that he was protecting the Forces, who saved the Country from the world’s most deadly terrorist outfit.

No wonder this foreign pressure gave him an unprecedented mandate of over two thirds majority to do as he wanted, turning this Country into an oppressive dictatorship, thanks to the UN and the Tamil Diaspora, none of whom accept their complicity in this crime.

With regard to the slow pace of reconciliation, that is again a matter for future debate, as most Tamil people want to live in peace, NOT necessarily in the North, where there is NO employment, but anywhere they wish as there are 500,000 job vacancies in Sri Lanka. They are forced to live in poverty ONLY because the TNA want them there, as they will NOT have any power, if they all move to areas where they can economically be successful. Having poor people hostage is the ONLY way for bankrupt politicians of the TNA to hang on to a non-existent federal solution! Let’s face it the Country is just too small for a federal solution, ESPECIALLY when twice as many Tamils live in areas outside of the North and East.

SO BACK TO ASSAD AND SYRIA

This comparison with the Sri Lankan civil war was done, so as the get a perspective on what may happen in future in Syria. Half its population has been exiled from Syria. This means that most of the ANTI ASSAD people are NO LONGER in the Country. Suppose all hostilities cease. The people in camps in Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon will NOT return UNTIL a permanent peace is established. A few more mass bombings, will kill people, and more people will leave the Country never to return. This will then allow ASSAD to agree to a ceasefire, and even permit DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS, which he will WIN!
GET IT

The Russians and Syrians are playing a game, where the WEST will have to take in ALL anti Assad Syrians for settlement, and he will be king of Syria again. It is a simple solution, and IS MORE LIKELY to result in that as each day goes by.

Yes the Syrians outside will be bitter, but they are people who will assimilate in their host countries, being white, and in a generation adopt the western lifestyle, as they were anyway not fundamentalist Islamists! Unlike the Tamil Diaspora, they will NOT continue to fund rebel groups in Syria, and try to return to re-take control from Assad and Alawites, who will establish a dynastic life in the Kingdom of Alawite Syria, achieving his single ambition, whilst ridding the Country of 6 million, and rebuilding the country with Russian help, taking over all the wealth of the people who left the Country. The Russians will have a permanent OUTPOST in Syria, for their Middle Eastern ambitions whatever that may be! Questions?


Assad believes he is on the CUSP of reaching his solution for Syria, and is HOPING that with a Trump Presidency, US will NOT take any refugees, NOR get involved in any international fighting with Russia, allowing the two Countries to carve out Syria for themselves. US could even ally with Russia on Syria!


Remember again, the Assad camp firmly believe that the rebels are simply terrorists, with NO RIGHTS of legitimate power in Syria. So the Western Press has failed to identify to lesser mortals like us the legitimate demands of the rebels, so we are unable to find a way to back their cause, and are only determined to AVOID the indiscriminate killings, which we will hold Assad responsible for. NO UN will be able to prosecute Assad for war crimes in the Hague, as his protector Russia is party to this crime, and HOLDS VETO POWER in the UN.

The NAKEDNESS of the UN is clear to see, and the fact that US and RUSSIA are unable EVEN TO ENFORCE A CEASEFIRE, and have Assad continue to DENY any flagrant violation of law or indiscriminate killing shows. The US NOT being able to prove to the world WHO CARRIED out the bombing of the AID convoy, leaves us to believe that there is a cover-up. After all there are satellites monitoring every bombing run in Aleppo and we have NOT seen one live bombing video!


There are wheels within wheels and we are left to ponder the games the superpowers are playing behind the scenes, having full knowledge of everything each power is doing in the region. We see the outrage and NO ONE can do anything about it no matter how much the Media exposes the tragedy on TV! 

SAD

PS I have deliberately avoided adding a further complication by bringing ISIL into this war as that too was a third front along with the AL Qaeda affiliates. This is because I believe their days are numbered, and they will become history shortly, leaving the two aforesaid protagonists to fight TO THE END as I don't see ASSAD giving up, and nor do I see that the UN has ANY power to do otherwise!

2 comments:

  1. BRILLIANT!

    How about a contrary point of view from a reader to give some balance, so others can weigh the pros and cons of the argument!

    ReplyDelete
  2. http://www.dailymirror.lk/116373/With-friends-like-these-who-needs-enemies-EDITORIAL

    ReplyDelete