[News] For whom the Syrian bell tolls

[Anti-Imperialist News]

*For whom the Syrian bell tolls*
By Pepe Escobar
12/22/12

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NL22Ak03.html

The top geopolitical tragedy in 2012 is bound to remain the top 
geopolitical tragedy in 2013: the rape of Syria.

Just as once in a while I go back to my favorite Hemingway passages, 
lately I've been going back to some footage I shot years ago of the 
Aleppo souk - the most extraordinary of all Middle Eastern souks. It's 
like being shot in the back; I was as fond of the souk's architecture as 
of its people and traders. Weeks ago, most of the souk - the living 
pulse of Aleppo for centuries - was set on fire and destroyed by the 
"rebels" of the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA).

In this Syrian tragedy, there is no Hemingway young hero, no Robert 
Jordan in the International Brigades fighting alongside
Republican guerrillas against the fascists during the Spanish Civil War. 
In the Syrian civil war, the international brigades are mostly of the 
mercenary, Salafi-jihadi, beheading and car-bombing type. And the (few) 
young Americans in place are basically high-tech pawns in a game played 
by the rapacious NATOGCC club (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization 
and its Arab puppets of the Gulf Cooperation Council). The tragedy 
continues. The Syrian state, political and military security apparatus 
will maintain its mini-blitzkriegs - with no second thoughts for 
"collateral damage". On the opposing side, "rebel" commanders will be 
betting on a new Saudi-Qatari-encouraged Supreme Military Council.
  Republican guerrillas against the fascists during the Spanish Civil 
War. In the Syrian civil war, the international brigades are mostly of 
the mercenary, Salafi-jihadi, beheading and car-bombing type. And the 
(few) young Americans in place are basically high-tech pawns in a game 
played by the rapacious NATOGCC club (the North Atlantic Treaty 
Organization and its Arab puppets of the Gulf Cooperation Council).

The tragedy continues. The Syrian state, political and military security 
apparatus will maintain its mini-blitzkriegs - with no second thoughts 
for "collateral damage". On the opposing side, "rebel" commanders will 
be betting on a new Saudi-Qatari-encouraged Supreme Military Council.

The Salafis and Salafi-jihadis of the al-Nusrah Front - 7th century 
fanatics, beheading enthusiasts and car-bombing operatives who do the 
bulk of the fighting - were not invited. After all, the al-Nusrah Front 
has been branded a "terrorist organization" by Washington.

Now check the reaction of a Muslim Brotherhood (MB) bigwig, Hama-born 
deputy comptroller general Mohammed Farouk Tayfour; he said the decision 
was "too hasty". And check the reaction of the new Syrian opposition 
leader, Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib, at a "Friends of Syria" meeting in 
Morocco; the decision must be "reexamined". Virtually all "rebel" 
outfits publicly declared their undying love for the hardcore al-Nusrah.

So with the al-Nusrah fanatics probably disguising their Islamically 
correct beards under a prosaic hoodie, expect plenty more "rebel" 
advances on Damascus - despite two major beatings (last July and then 
this month), courtesy of Syrian government counter-offensives. After 
all, that lavish training by US, British and Jordanian Special Forces 
has got to yield some results, not to mention the loads of extra lethal 
weapons provided by those paragons of democracy in the Persian Gulf. By 
the way, the al-Nusrah Front controls sections of devastated Aleppo.

*Sectarian hatred rules *
Then there's the Orwellian, brand new National Coalition of Syrian 
Revolutionary and Opposition Forces - a Washington-Doha co-production. 
Meet the new boss, same as the old (lousy) boss, which was the Syrian 
National Council (SNC). It's just rhetoric; the only thing that matters 
for the "National Coalition" is to get more lethal weapons. And they 
love al-Nusrah, even if Washington doesn't.

Qatar unloaded tons of weapons "like candy" (according to a US arms 
dealer) in "liberated" Libya. Only after the Benghazi blowback did the 
Pentagon and the State Department wake up to the fact that weaponizing 
the Syrian rebels may be, well, the road to more blowback. Translation: 
Qatar will keep unloading tons of weapons in Syria. The US will keep 
"leading from behind".

Expect more horrible sectarian massacres as the one in Aqrab. Here 
<http://blogs.channel4.com/alex-thomsons-view/happened-syrian-town-aqrab/3426> 
is the most authoritative version of what may have really happened. This 
proves once again that what the NATOGCC "rebels" are actually winning is 
the YouTube war. So expect more massive, relentless waves of spin and 
propaganda - with Western corporate media cheerleading of the Syrian 
"freedom fighters" putting to shame the 1980s jihad in Afghanistan.

Expect more major distortions of context, as when Russian Deputy Foreign 
Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said, "The fighting will become even more 
intense, and [Syria] will lose tens of thousands and, perhaps, hundreds 
of thousands of civilians... If such a price for the removal of the 
president seems acceptable to you, what can we do? We, of course, 
consider it absolutely unacceptable."

Ergo, Russia is trying to do everything to prevent this from happening. 
And if NATOGCC "rebels" carry out their threats to attack the Russian 
and Ukrainian embassies in Damascus, they had better trim their beards 
and run for cover from the no-nonsense Spetnatz - Russian Special Forces.

Expect more sectarian hatred, as in Sunni Sheikh and al-Jazeera star 
Yusuf al-Qaradawi casually issuing a fatwa 
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgVF0t2mfsE&feature=player_embedded> 
legitimizing the killing of millions of Syrians, be they military or 
civilian, as long as they are Alawites or Shi'ites.

Sectarian hatred will rule, with Qatar in the lead, followed by Saudis 
with large pocketbooks and assorted hardcore Islamists. Agenda; war 
against Shi'ites, against Alawites, against secularists, even against 
moderates, not only in Syria but all across the Middle East.

*A Patriot vs Iskander face-off*
The new Syrian Army strategy boils down to a major pull back from 
countryside backwaters and bases, concentrating their troops in cities 
and towns.

Expect the overall strategy of the NATOGCC club to remain more or less 
the same; bog down the Syrian Army in as many areas as possible; 
demoralize them; and keep oiling the terrain for a possible North 
Atlantic Treaty Organization intervention (the chemical weapons hype and 
the relentless carping over a "humanitarian catastrophe" are part of the 
extensive psy ops package).

The Syrian Army may have the heavy weapons; but when confronting a 
tsunami of mercenaries and Salafi-jihadists fully trained and weaponized 
by the NATOGCC club, the whole thing may take years, Lebanon civil 
war-style. That leads us to the next "best" option - which is in fact a 
spin-off; the death of the Syrian state by a thousand, make it a 
million, cuts.

What's certain is that the "coalition of the willing" against Syria will 
have no trouble unraveling once the endgame is reached. Washington bets 
on a post-Assad regime run by the MB. No wonder King Playstation in 
Jordan is freaking out; he knows the MB will also take over Jordan and 
expel him to permanently shop at Harrods.

Those paragons of democracy - the medieval petro-monarchies in the 
Persian Gulf - are also freaking out; they fear the popular appeal of 
the MB like the plague. Syrian Kurdistan - now definitely on its way to 
total autonomy and eventually freedom - already keeps Ankara freaking 
out. Not to mention the future prospect of a tsunami of unemployed 
Salafi-jihadis merrily ensconced in the Syria-Turkish border and ready 
to run amok.

And then there's the complex Turkey-Iran relationship. Tehran has 
already warned Ankara in no uncertain terms 
<http://www.todayszaman.com/newsDetail_getNewsById.action?newsId=301277>about 
the just-to-be-deployed NATO missile defense system.

That's got to be the newspeak masterpiece of late 2012. Pentagon 
spokesman George Little has been adamant that "the United States has 
been supporting Turkey in its efforts to defend itself... [against Syria]."

Thus the deployment of 400 US troops to Turkey to run two Patriot 
missile batteries, to "defend" Turkey from "potential threats emanating 
from Syria".

Translation; this has nothing to do with Turkey, it's all about the 
Russian military in Syria. Moscow has given Damascus not only very 
effective, hypersonic Iskander surface-to-surface missiles (virtually 
immune to missile defense systems) but the ground-to-air, multiple 
target defense system Pechora 2M, a nightmare to the Pentagon if ever a 
no-fly zone is imposed over Syria.

Welcome to the Patriot vs Iskander face-off. And right in the line of 
fire, we find Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan - an outsized 
egomaniac harboring a deep inferiority complex in relation to the 
Europeans - left in the cold under NATO's master plan.

Turkey's Achilles heel (apart from the Kurds) is its self-promoted role 
of being a crossroads of energy between East and West. The problem is 
Turkey depends on energy supplies from both Iran and Russia; unwisely, 
it is antagonizing both, at the same time, with its muddled Syrian policy.

All I hear is doom and gloom

How to solve this tragedy? No one seems to be listening to Syrian Vice 
President Farouk Al-Sharaa. In this interview 
<http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/exclusive-interview-syrian-vp-farouk-al-sharaa-proposes-alternative-war> 
with Lebanon's Al-Akhbar, he stresses "the threat of the current 
campaign to destroy Syria, its history, civilization, and people... With 
every passing day, the solution gets further away, militarily and 
politically. We must be in the position of defending Syria's existence."

He does not have "a clear answer to what the solution may be". But he 
has a road map:

    Any settlement, whether starting with talks or agreements between
    Arab, regional, or foreign capitals, cannot exist without a solid
    Syrian foundation. The solution has to be Syrian, but through a
    historic settlement, which would include the main regional
    countries, and the members of UN Security Council. This settlement
    must include stopping all shapes of violence, and the creation of a
    national unity government with wide powers. This should be
    accompanied by the resolution of sensitive dossiers related to the
    lives of people and their legitimate demands.

This is not what the NATOGCC compound wants - even as the US, Britain, 
France, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are all engaged in their own 
divergent agendas. What the NATOGCC war has already accomplished is one 
objective - very similar, by the way, to Iraq in 2003; it has completely 
torn the fragile Syrian social fabric to shreds.

That is disaster capitalism in action, phase I; the terrain is already 
prepared for a profitable "reconstruction" of Syria once a pliable, 
pro-Western turbo-capitalism government is installed.

Yet in parallel, blowback also works its mysterious ways; millions of 
Syrians who initially supported the idea of a pro-democracy movement - 
from the business classes in Damascus to traders in Aleppo - now have 
swelled the government support base as a counterpunch against the 
gruesome ethnic-religious cleansing promoted by the "rebels" of the 
al-Nusrah kind.

Yet with NATOGCC on one side and Iran-Russia on the other side, ordinary 
Syrians caught in the crossfire have nowhere to go. NATOGCC will stop at 
nothing to carve - in blood - any dubious entity ranging from a pro-US 
emirate to a pro-US "democracy" run by the MB. It's not hard to see for 
whom the bell tolls in Syria; it tolls not for thee, as in John Donne, 
but for doom, gloom, death and destruction.

/*Pepe Escobar* is the author of/ Globalistan: How the Globalized World 
is Dissolving into Liquid War 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0978813820/simpleproduction/ref=nosim> 
(Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during 
the surge 
<http://www.amazon.com/Red-Zone-Blues-snapshot-Baghdad/dp/0978813898>. 
His most recent book is Obama does Globalistan 
<http://www.amazon.com/Obama-Does-Globalistan-Pepe-Escobar/dp/1934840831/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233698286&sr=8-1> 
(Nimble Books, 2009). /He may be reached at/ pepeasia at yahoo.com
-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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