By Aamer Anwar
US Secretary of State John Kerry told the world that ‘Assad’s regime had the largest chemical weapons program in Middle East’ as 1429 Syrian men, women and children were murdered with chemical weapons in Damascus.
The Chemical Weapons Convention boldly set out for ‘the sake of all mankind, to exclude completely the possibility of the use of chemical weapons’. Syria however is not the only one in the region not to have signed the convention or to have used chemical weapons.
If John Kerry checked with his intelligence services he would find that Israel has the largest stockpile of chemical weapons as well as WMD and has failed to sign the convention. I’m not sure when was the last time demands were made for weapons inspectors to enter Israel’s illegal weapons facilities. But that’s an argument for another day we will be told.
The US is screaming a red line has been crossed last week, but in 2 years Assad has committed crimes against humanity with the genocide of over 100,000 of his people and his family imposing a brutal dictatorship for over 40 years. Do they not count?
Bashar’s own father President Hafez al Assad raised the city of Hama to the ground in 1982, massacring 20,000 residents, then bulldozing their bodies and homes to dust.
The Free Syrian Army began fighting back against Bashar Assad but thousands are joining the highly organised Islamist Jabhat Al- Nushra funded by the Saudis, many of these battle hardened resistance fighters pledge support for Al- Qaeda, crossing into Syria from Iraq.
The next time a politician dares to mentions the word ‘cowardice’ tell him to send his son or daughter first into a Middle East cesspit to die before he asks that even one member of our armed forces should be sacrificed.
I never thought ‘War Criminal Peace Envoy’ Tony Blair would leave a worthwhile legacy, but because of his lies Parliament has finally exerted its authority after 300 years, by stopping a prime minister from sending our soldiers to die.
The special relationship may be over for a short while but at least for once we will not be portrayed across the world as America’s lapdog, France can take up that role now.
Dropping ‘cruise missiles’ will send out a message that you cross the red line if you use chemical weapons but that it’s ok to massacre 100s of thousands using conventional weapons.
Is that really the best we can do?
It has been 2 years since the Syrian people took to the streets in a popular and peaceful uprising but since then the Saudis have poured millions into funding and stoking a sectarian bloodbath favouring Sunni religious fundamentalists over Iranian backed Shias.
Cameron and Obama desperate for war time credentials are fighting a new cold war with Russia and China as thousands are massacred like pawns in a game of regional chess.
International leaders act as though it’s a battle of good over evil but the Assad’s have been butchering thousands of innocents every year.
Missile diplomacy didn’t resolve Iraq. We sleep walked our way into 2 wars, with 1 ½ million Iraqis killed. As for the UK our reward was the return of soldiers in coffins and terror on our streets.
Today the CIA is covertly training rebels in Jordan to overthrow Assad but that begs the question as to why they are not training rebels to overthrow the Saudi regime.
Millions of Syrian men women and children face genocide, starvation, disease and hypothermia this Winter. If Cameron cares about their plight then what they need is food, water and places of safety for their families. International Aid Agencies have only received a percentage of aid they were promised for Syria over a year ago.
If Cameron is so desperate to use our Armed forces then send them to provide resources from land, sea and air that would allow the resistance not to be starved into submission but to defeat Assad and negotiate their own terms for a peaceful, democratic and united Syria.
Courtesy of Aamer Anwar