Miles Report No. 36 - Baird rewrites history on Syria

In his recent speech today, John Baird made many anodyne comments concerning the situation in Syria. He cites various statistics about deaths, and how people have been displaced, and how children have lost their youth. All very true (although I must admit that my first thought was wondering where all these criticisms were when the U.S. invaded Iraq and Israel invaded Gaza).

True, Assad was a dictator, but not unlike the dictators and monarchies that Canada supports elsewhere: Canada supports Saudi Arabia and its tribal backward monarchy; alongside the Saudis Canada supports Bahrain, Yemen, the U.A.E; Canada supports Jordan and the monarchy that is in power there, and has said nothing about the coup d’etat of the military in Egypt over an elected government. Regionally then, yes Assad was perhaps a ‘bad guy’, but not as evil as depicted by Baird’s hyperbole in describing the situation as Assad trying

“to crush the peaceful demands of ordinary Syrians with unrestrained savagery.”

Well, no. He acted mainly as other despots in the region have acted without the same equation being applied to their actions - this “savagery” is quite normal for countries that side with the U.S. in its role as global hegemon. Unfortunately for Assad, he was supported by the Russians and had not yet signed a peace treaty with Israel (as had the other two main combatants, Egypt and Jordan). Therefore when opportunity knocked at the U.S. foreign policy door, Assad became the horrible monster they wanted him to be. Granted, perhaps not the nicest neighbour to have, but at least he did not attack other countries preemptively as had Israel done to Syria - and then illegally annexed the Golan heights.

True, Assad did fight against those who wanted to oust him, but it was not a declaration of war. Certainly he did use his “arsenal” to quell the disruptions - much as the U.S. did to end the occupy movement, or the Bahrainis did to end the protests against their minority dictatorship. But it has been accurately discounted that he used chemical weapons against his own people.

This ‘red line’ was a truly artificial one set up by Obama, and then false flagged by the opposition al-Qaeda militants wanting to draw in U.S. firepower so that they could win militarily, sort of as with Libya when the “no fly zone” became a bomb anything that moves zone. (That war by the way was done in order to stop Gaddafi from initiating an African currency that would avoid the use of the U.S. fiat currency that it uses to control lots of the world, to maintain the U.S. as the petrodollar and kick the Chinese out of the Libyan oilfields.)

Was there a vacuum to be filled in Syria? Perhaps, but it was filled rather quickly by fundamentalist militants arriving from...oh yeah, Libya, and Saudi Arabia, and Iraq and who knows where else they have dropped in from.

“He has invited the terrorist organization Hezbollah and its state sponsor, Iran, into this conflict through the front door.”

Hezbollah would act on its own initiative, but more importantly, it is not a terrorist organization. It is an organization formed under Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon and initially set up social and civic structures to help the citizens of the region as the central Lebanese government was not willing or capable of doing this. That they became a defensive insurrection and finally drove the Israelis out of southern Lebanon is standard history. Iran of course has always been associated with Syria, if Baird had taken the time to read any current events, exchanging oil and military technology between them, sort of like what Canada does with Saudi Arabia and other Arab states.

Assad supposedly,

“opened the back door to Al-Qaeda affiliates like the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and Jabat Al Nusra.”

Yeah sure, Mr. Baird. An Alawite dictator wishing to invite Sunni radical fundamentalist militants into his country in order to fight against him. Yeah, right.

A real terrorist threat in Syria? Oh my gosh, how could that be? Perhaps it is because the U.S. and its western allies have a long history of intervention in the region in order to control its mineral resources. This history goes well back one hundred years with the British Empire later to be overtaken by the U.S. empire. It was the U.S. in alliance with Pakistan and Afghanistan and - here they are again - Saudi Arabia, that initially set up the mujahideen who in turn became, in part, al-Qaeda.

Yes, “ It is a war we have seen before on the streets of Baghdad,” when the U.S, illegally invaded the country - that by the way Mr. Baird, had no WMDs, nor participated in 9/11, and like Mr. Assad, Saddam Hussein detested the Sunni radical militant fundamentalists of which there were none in Iraq to begin with.

But you argue also, this time correctly, the “its agents are ones who have been hardened by the wars of the last decade.” For sure - against the U.S. in Afghanistan, against the U.S. in Iraq after they had the opportunity to enter the country with the abolition of the Baath Party and all its elements including the army, against the U.S. in Yemen and Somalia, against the U.S. and European countries in the African Sahel, and against Gaddafi in Libya once the “doors” were opened by NATO bombing.

I think its called “blowback|” Mr. Baird, a book of the same title might give you some clue as to the real history of U.S. and western intervention into the region, written before 9/11. What goes around comes around….?

Another point of agreement with Baird is when he argues that “this war did not start as a war against terrorism” which is true, but then he lies once again that “ the Assad regime cynically claims” that it was. No, Assad has made no such claims, he was just well ahead of the curve in recognizing the nature of the people imported to fight against him, at the behest of the U.S. and Saudi Arabia - dang, there they are again, the two main terrorist organizers in the region.

The rest of Baird’s speech is pretty much straight forward liberal homilies and platitudes. Without taking into account the reality of the situation - which did include U.S. and Canadian support for the terrorists now “threatening violence” on neighbouring countries - there will be no peace plan forth coming.

Rewriting current events and the history preceding them is one way to feel self righteous about what is happening. It is a manner that suits the western media and politicians to create an ‘other’ that is detested by ‘our side’ so that we will not question the savagery that ‘we’ commit in order to maintain western hegemony of the region. Peace will not come to the region as long as U.S. hegemony is at stake.