Only one thing would have been worse than the shocking news that Bashar al Assad had been driven to leave his home and country by a tide of barbarians - that he would suffer the terrible fate of Moammar Qadhafi, hunted down by French and British jets and finally butchered by a mob. It was a fate recalled by many who celebrated Assad's removal, though with a little distaste; they would have preferred that the missiles fired at his convoy as he finally fled from Sirte had simply incinerated everyone, but the veteran Libyan leader escaped the fire by hiding in a culvert. That news traveled quickly to Misrata and alerted the NATO 'rebels', who set off to baptise themselves in Qadhafi's blood - only to find that they themselves could claim the hunter's prize, and gain notoriety by filming the sordid scene. Moammar Qadhafi had been fighting "Al Qaeda" terrorist groups organised by MI6 and the CIA to kill him since the nineties, when Libya was falsely blamed for bringing down a US jet over Lockerbie. Faced with imminent torture and death, he heroically tried to argue with his blood-hungry captors, repeating "Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda" to them in vain.
For this little revelation, Qadhafi was endlessly mocked and ridiculed, but for those paying attention a new vista opened up. We soon heard from Annie Machon who worked for MI5 in the '90s, and with her partner David Shayler revealed the details of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group set up by MI6 to assassinate him. Some of those most closely involved in that unsuccessful plot were now leading the Muslim Brotherhood 'rebels' in Tripoli, including Abdulhakim Belhaj, who later became the military leader of the new 'government'. There is a lot more to this story, but we can see the parallels, as my leading photo illustrates; what just happened in Damascus is very similar to the "Fall of Tripoli" in the nature and allegiances of the usurpers of power and the nature of the regime they destroyed. Even in the three days since I started writing this, those parallels have become more evident, as we now see both a "Prime Minister" and a "Foreign Minister" appointed to the "transitional government", men who both held leading positions with HTS in Idlib. The latter - 'Asaad Al Shibani' was previously known as Zaid al Attar, and was the co-founder of Al Nusra with Jolani. There is however a major difference between the coups in Libya and Syria, in that the combined NATO attack on Libya was based on a UN security council resolution, and declaration of a 'No-Fly Zone'. Many people supported the idea, thinking that the object was simply to prevent Libyan planes from bombing people, and what harm could that do? The so-called "Responsibility to Protect". But we soon had buyer's remorse, on seeing that what was meant by a 'No-Fly Zone' was actually a 'Free-Fly Zone' - for all aircraft other than Libya's. A volley of 1200 Tomahawk cruise missiles fired mostly from subs in the Mediterranean destroyed all of Libya's missile defences and weapons and ammunition stores, allowing NATO aircraft to bomb at will. As with Syria, Turkey played a central role in the coup, and in the subsequent development of a pipeline of weapons and fighters sent from Tunisia and Libya into Syria. As a reminder of what happens when you loose the dogs of war, here's a photo of a Libyan 'rebel' enjoying a lounge in one of Qadafi's extravagant pieces of furniture.
So now that the rabid dogs are on the loose, and all the leaders and followers who couldn't or wouldn't visit Damascus are rushing in for a slice of her cake, and Allah forbid - standing on the top of Mount Hermon gloating over the Zionists' latest purchase, what is the way forward? Is such a way even possible, when those proselytisers for 'democracy' and 'inclusiveness' have just smashed to pieces all their shallow pretences? Nothing can ever be the same now, even if they were to somehow stop the genocide in Gaza, because 'Israel' and its backers are determined it never will be. They have just succeeded in executing the fastest regime change operation in history without resistance and practically without criticism in the West - a monumental achievement that has "grasped victory from the jaws of defeat". As 'Israel' faced its day of judgement from the people whose land it occupies and exploits, and having made itself a global pariah state with its unprecendented butchery and obliteration of life in Gaza, it seemed to many that the Zionist project was finished; it was only a question of how the end would come. Yet there is light beyond this terrible dark tunnel we are plunged into, in the strength of the ongoing resistance and the possibility of truth. Never before has such a conspiracy of nations and 'information' networks succeeded in deceiving so many people into allowing and supporting the triumph of evil over justice and truth. At the same time there is incredible nonchalance and apparent lack of understanding of what has just occurred, seen in the context of the fourteen years of war since the launching of the 'Arab Spring'. Summarising what actually has occurred in the last two weeks and the last twenty years in Syria - which was always THE prime target of the 'Arab Spring' and the focus of neo-con plans to create the 'Salafist Principality' in Syria that we now have, a discussion with two veterans of the conflict gives excellent guidance, along with shocking revelations of the truth. Those who think that an unelected and unrepresentative 'government' formed from the chiefs of the fundamentalist group that controlled Idlib 'with an Iron Fist' will somehow change its spots, are living in cloud-cuckoo land. It is as likely as that 'Israel' would decide after all to give equal rights to the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, give them free access to all parts of Palestine, and equal representation in a bi-lingual Knesset. The appearance of Saudi Sheik Muhaysini celebrating his entry into the Ummayad mosque the day after Jolani's arrival surely sent a shiver down the spine of many Syrians:
The real nature of this so-called ‘transitional government’ was revealed today at a press conference for the new foreign minister, with others in the leadership present. Note in particular the uniform green colour covering all of the map of Syria, and with graphics indicating Aleppo, Damascus, Homs and Hama. The Arabic reads “Revolution for Syria”, though I have no idea what ’13’ means. It appears as if the whole of the “Syrian Salvation Government” which operated in Idlib has been transplanted to Damascus, with the same men in charge and including a police force from the ‘Ministry of the Interior’, according to their badges.
Also appearing today on Al Jazeera – whose transformation into a propaganda channel for the new Syria is breathtakingly hypocritical – was the map below showing the supposed current partition of Syria. Most notable is the absence of a chunk of territory around Al Tanf on the Jordanian border which was – and presumably still is – occupied by US forces and ISIS trainees.
But to end with a positive vision – while mourning for the loss of so much in Syria, here is the Ummayad mosque in May 2010:
DM 22nd December 2024