Foreign Syrian intervention and the Russian-Chinese opposition

Patrushev and Putin (credit: www.kremlin.ru

Madison Ruppert, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

The push for foreign intervention in Syria has been going on for quite a while now and never seems to relent in ferocity. I have been writing about this issue for months now, so if you would like to get a strong background on this topic I highly recommend you scroll down to the end of the article to find a list of related reading materials.

Despite the large conglomeration of Western nations and allied nations in the Arab League’s relentless full-court press, some countries continue to resist this effort.

The most glaring example is, of course, Russia.

Russia has not only been a vocal opponent of sanctions and resolutions in the United Nations Security Council, indeed they have actually backed up their rhetoric with muscle; something which China has yet to do.

I previously reported on Russia moving complete advanced anti-aircraft missile systems and all that is required to operate them into Syria, a move which was likely an attempt to dissuade the West and/or Arab League from moving to establish a no-fly zone over Syria.

Russian warships have also moved into Syrian waters previously, and most recently it was announced that a Russian naval group docked in the Syrian port city of Tartus.

All of these actions make some quite pronounced statements to the United States, NATO and Arab League members who are seeking to topple the Assad regime.

However, it just becomes more heated as the days go by and the statements coming out of Russia just get increasingly unequivocal.

Remarks made by Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev have been some of the strongest to date.

In an interview with Russian newspaper Kommersant, Patrushev stated that NATO member states are planning “direct military intervention” in cooperation with the Arab League, according to RT.

Such an operation would likely be mostly in the blueprint of the foreign intervention in Libya which led to the brutal murder of Qaddafi, the desecration of his corpse, Western puppets being put in power, Western nations reaping the windfall profits of the contracts to rebuild Libya, and of course a massive civilian death toll.

This seems like hardly the course of events anyone would seek to repeat, yet this is exactly what they are apparently planning to do.

However, I must encourage the reader to keep in mind that this is not the first time such a report has been released, but in the previous case no such no-fly zone or so-called “buffer zone” ever emerged.

This operation would likely break from the mold of the Libyan operation in one important way: instead of the United States, France, Italy and the United Kingdom providing most of the firepower and personnel, it very well might be Turkey in this case.

Turkey might turn its back on a former ally due to the Turkish-Iranian rivalry.

Turkey reportedly has “huge ambitions” in the region and the major impediment to the realization of such ambitions is Iran, which continues to maintain close ties with Syria – something which obviously irks the West.

Patrushev has stated that the United States and Turkey are thought to be in the process of negotiating the establishment of a no-fly zone over Syria, which obviously would directly benefit the armed insurgent forces in the nation like the Free Syrian Army.

Recently a foreign journalist was killed in Syria, but not by government forces as many in the controlled establishment media immediately assumed.

This became quite obvious when it came out that the journalist was in fact at a pro-government rally, and a government under siege domestically shooting its own citizens who support them makes so little sense that it is surprising that anyone would say otherwise, even in the chronically nonsensical mainstream media.

Events like this have been occurring since day one, but the mentions of the armed opposition and their actions are usually either omitted, marginalized, or strategically buried in articles.

Obviously this is a concerted effort as the presence of opposition gunmen is hardly an insignificant detail and it thoroughly contradicts the mainstream media’s manufactured narrative.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has continued to point to a foreign conspiracy as the cause of the uprising, statements which are routinely derided by the Western media and governments.

Assad’s statements are usually either ignored or brushed off as the insane rantings of some paranoid lunatic, which is a classic diversionary tactic intended to keep people from actually looking into his claims.

When one does, it becomes quite clear that there is, in fact, a Western conspiracy against Syria, and it is hardly unclear when one takes the time to look past the myopic coverage of the establishment media.

Often a news outlet will actually report on the Western backing of opposition groups, funding of anti-government propaganda, etc. while somehow managing to forget to integrate this knowledge into their future coverage.

This is because it wouldn’t look very good for a news outlet to cover the statements of chronic deceiver, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and then mention how there is evidence that clearly shows all of her statements to be bald-faced lies.

The same State Department has been guilty of pumping anti-government propaganda into Syria via satellite, while American ambassadors have met with prominent Syrian opposition figures and Syrian opposition non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have had high-level meetings with the British government as well.

Unsurprisingly, instead of even attempting to address the mountain of evidence that shows covert foreign involvement in the Syrian uprising – and the greater “Arab Spring” uprisings in general – Clinton just derided the comments as a whole.

Clinton made her typically laughable baseless statements during a joint press-conference with the Prime Minister of Qatar, calling Assad’s speech “chillingly cynical” adding that America “cannot permit President Assad and his regime to have impunity.”

The presence of the Qatari PM is quite ironic given their heavy involvement in the Libyan intervention, including running all of the major ground operations for the NATO-backed rebel forces.

We must keep in mind that Al Jazeera is a Qatari state-funded propaganda arm, thus the news they publish must be viewed with the necessary skepticism, like all media, but especially the controlled establishment media.

It is also worth noting that the Clinton just stated that the Arab League’s monitoring mission should be brought to an end because they have so far totally failed to “deter the government’s 10-month campaign of violence against dissidents,” according to Bloomberg.

The timing of Clinton’s remarks is quite interesting as well, not only because she had just met with Qatari Foreign Minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabor al Thani, but also because American President Barack Obama also recently met with the Saudi Foreign Minister, Saud al-Faisal, at the White House.

Saudi Arabia has been a key partner in the Western growth in the region, especially in the effort to encircle and isolate Syria and Iran.

As I have previously covered, the United States is also arming these allied states in the Persian Gulf; in the case of Saudi Arabia it is with new and renovated fighter jets.

A Middle East analyst at the Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Irina Zvyagelskaya, said that Russia is concerned that if Assad’s government is toppled, Islamic radicals may come to power.

This is hardly a baseless claim given that we have seen the  heavy involvement of Islamic forces throughout the so-called Arab Spring uprisings, especially in Libya and Egypt.

Zvyagelskaya stated that while Russia would continue to block any attempt at approval of a no-fly zone in the United Nations Security Council, Western nations and their allies very well might take an approach similar to that in 2003 in the case of Iraq.

This would be an independent coalition, outside of the United Nations, which could then engage in anything and everything without concern over operating outside of a UN mandate or a UNSC resolution.

“Syria has not become an object of interest for a new coalition of the willing itself,” Patrushev said.

“The plan is to punish Damascus not so much for repressing the opposition as for its unwillingness to sever friendly relations with Tehran.”

Then again, as we saw in Libya, the West and others have absolutely no problem with breaching a United States Security Council Resolution if they decide to do so.

“We have seen before what a no-fly zone means, it will be used to overthrow the regime,” Zvyagelskaya said.

This is quite right, as we have seen in Libya where the no-fly zone actually killed civilians instead of protecting them as it was intended to do.

Instead, it was used to advance the NATO-backed and Qatari-controlled rebel ground forces in their effort to kill Qaddafi and enact regime change.

As I have previously reported, the Free Syrian Army – comprised mostly of military defectors – has been pushing for a “buffer zone” (a less intimidating term for a no-fly zone) in the north on the Turkish-Syrian border and the South on the Syrian-Jordanian border.

The Jordanian aspect of this equation becomes more important when one considers the reports of American troop buildups on the Syrian-Jordanian border in the recent past.

There is the real possibility that this force (if it is actually still there, which is unconfirmed as far as I know) could be used to create or assist in the establishment of this so-called buffer zone.

Fyodor Lukyanov, an analyst at the Council on Foreign and Defense policy in Moscow, said that these statements from Russia are likely due either to intelligence regarding Western military plans in Syria, or perhaps it may just be an effort to make it clear that they will actively oppose any efforts made by the West or its allies to intervene.

However, I would argue that this has been quite clear with the instances of Russian warship presence and the delivery of advanced missile systems that Russia has always intended to take an active role in opposing any foreign efforts.

“After the Libyan experience, Russia will do everything to stop this scenario from happening,” Lukyanov told Bloomberg, adding, “Syria is much more important than Libya from Russia’s point of view.”

I think that it is quite obvious at this point that Syria is more important to Russia given that Russia never docked naval vessels on the coast of Libya or delivered weapons systems.

All of these statements from the Russians only serve to make it even more obvious that they will not stand for yet another Western intervention under the guise of humanitarianism.

Wu Sike, China’s Special Envoy to the Middle East said that China rejected the internationalization of the Syrian crisis, while showing their support for the Arab League’s efforts to resolve the situation, according to Syria’s SANA via Azerbaijani Trend News Agency.

Sike stated that the situation should be addressed within the Arab framework, clearly implying that the Western companies trying to meddle in Syria’s domestic affairs need to mind their own business.

Interestingly, Sike’s statements conflicted with those of Clinton most significantly in that the Chinese Envoy said that the Arab League’s monitors should be assisted by the Syrian government and the other sides involved in hopes that they will succeed.

On the other hand, Clinton seems to believe that it has been a total failure which should be chalked up as a loss, indicating that the next option they will be pursuing will likely involve some kind of military action.

Hopefully the significant opposition from Russia – backed up with the threat of military action – coupled with China’s more diplomatic approach will serve to dissuade the West and the regional allies from engaging in another imperialistic regime change.

Unfortunately the wild brazenness with which the West has been operating as of late does nothing to reassure me that sufficient opposition will occur. 

This article first appeared at EndtheLie.com