by Syria Support Movement, published on Syria Support Movement Website, September 26, 2024
Editor’s Note: Nowhere is it suggested that Jill Stein is or is not overall the best candidate for president. This is an informational statement that is concerned with the Green Party Platform as described in the text. Disagreeing with a point, or stance is not an attack on those holding that position. It is an attempt at discussion.. Some of us have a very strong concern related to Syria and the war, and have taken the trouble to deeply educate ourselves on the subject. We would like to share what we have learned. If it is not permissible to express opinions in opposition to different parties and platforms, then what kind of democracy do we have? Furthermore, those of us who have been standing on the streets in support of Palestine, including Dr. Stein, should be well aware that it is advantageous for the people to participate in the formation of policy in this country.
*** If you would like to sign this statement, click HERE. ***
Dear Dr. Stein,
Up to last week, you graciously provided US voters with a clear, viable, electoral alternative to the twin war parties, namely, Democrats and Republicans. Regrettably, last Thursday, September 19th, your campaign issued a statement undermining your status as the “peace candidate.”
The statement called Russian President Putin and Syrian President Assad “war criminals” for their roles resisting a US-orchestrated regime-change operation, begun in 2011 and continuing to this day, in Syria. That operation, illegal under international law, was initiated under the Obama Administration and led by his Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton. Under Clinton, the US created a government-in-waiting, called the Syrian National Council, which it recognized as the legitimate government of Syria, and marshalled its allies in Europe and among Arab countries, to recruit, finance, train, arm, insert, and coordinate armies of terrorist mercenaries (from Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, and, later, ISIS) into Syria where they illegally invaded and occupied large swaths of Syrian territory. Through their barbaric war crimes, those de facto US foot soldiers caused terror among the Syrian population, causing millions to flee their homeland as refugees and even more to be displaced within Syria.
The US end game was to destroy an enemy of Israel and a state that opposed US hegemonic initiatives in the region. The US strategy was to balkanize the country of Syria into tiny, warring, confessional statelets and leave the country as a failed state, in the same manner that the US and NATO destroyed the Libyan government at precisely the same time and left it as a failed state.
Presidents Putin and Assad were and are not the problem. Russia was and is an ally of Syria. It long maintained a naval base in Syria at Tartus. At the official request of the Syrian government, Russia was invited to help Syria, in accordance with international law, to defend the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria. With Russian help, along with support from Iran and Hezbollah (likewise allies of Syria), the Syrian Arab Army was able to liberate most of the country from terrorist control.
During his Administration, following the strategic defeat of ISIS, Trump decided to leave US troops (who were never invited into Syria in the first place) in occupation of the eastern third of Syria, where, to this day, they (along with their Kurdish militia) continue to steal Syria’s oil and wheat resources, thus preventing the legitimate government in Damascus from using these funds for reconstruction.
And, in addition to all these flagrant violations of international law, the US, its NATO partners, and various Arab countries joined the US in imposing extremely brutal coercive economic measures against Syria, devaluing the country’s currency and destroying its economy. These economic sanctions are unilateral and illegal (not having the approval of the UN Security Council). But they reduced 80% of the Syrian population today to food insecurity and to reliance on a meager hour or two of electricity per day.
Dr. Stein, your September 19th statement has disappointed many people in the USA and around the world. You cannot be the “peace candidate” on the one hand, and support criminal enterprises, (waged by both Democrats and Republicans) such as the war which continues today in Syria, on the other. We hope you will do the right thing, which would be for you to call for the US to end its unlawful occupation of eastern Syria and to drop its brutal sanctions regime against the country. Finally, you have certainly noted that Syria has been readmitted to the Arab League and that many countries of the world have re-established diplomatic relations as well as trade and communication links with the country. We hope that you, too, will champion the ending of US hostilities against Syria and call for the re-establishment of full diplomatic relations.
*** If you would like to sign this statement, click HERE. ***
Suggested Resources:
- The War Against Alternative Information, by Rick Sterling
- Attacks on Academic Freedom, The Times of London and MI6, by Dr. Piers Robinson
- The Dirty War on Syria, by Tim Anderson
- Syria Crucified: Stories of Modern Martyrdom in an Ancient Christian Land by Zachary Wingerd and Brad Hoff
- Articles on Syria by Alena Douhan, Ted Postol, Aaron Mate, Rania Khalek, Sharmine Narwani (to name a few)
*** If you would like to sign this statement, click HERE. ***
Editor’s note: I’d like to add is that this issue, and the recent revival of anti-Syria/anti-Assad propaganda in general, is very closely related to the Israeli war on Palestine. Israel, Palestine and Lebanon, along with some other contiguous regions were always a single cultural unit in West Asia, what we now call the Middle East. Syria was at the center of that region. Since the Nakba, Syria has taken this relationship very seriously. It has provided a home to the most Palestinian refugees, and has afforded the most privileges to the Palestinians who live there of any country in the region. And right up to the beginning of the Syrian war, Bashar al Assad rejected normalization with Israel despite being offered a significant payoff. Syria is and has been a primary conduit of support for the Palestinian resistance. [jb]
Not all UNAC members agree with this statement.
Russia and Syria under Assad slaughtered and continues to slaughter Syrians. Like the slaughter of 1,330 in the Yarmouk refugee camp of Palestinians in 2018, Also helped by Iran and Russia.
This is absolutely not true. It is just western propaganda. Terrorists paid by the United States and the Gulf states overran Syria and the army drove them out except or Idlib, where they sent rebels rather than slaughter them. The US and Turkey then occupied parts of Syria directly, and they remain there today. Russia has had a Naval Base in Syria for decades. Around 2015, after Isis entered Syria, they feared that Syria would be destroyed like Libya was, so they agreed to come in and assist the Syrians with defense.
With regard to Yarmouk, Hamas, encouraged by the Emir of Qaatar and Erdogan in Turkey, made the mistake of abandoning their Syrian supporters (they had been based in Syria for many years) and siding with Muslim Brotherhood rebels fighting for a theocracy in Syria. They were wreaking havoc in the middle of Damascus and the Palestinians who lived in Yarmouk were divided with most, like most other Syrians, not wanting a war. But they were trapped in the middle. The Syrian army did everything in their power to allow the residents of Yarmouk to leave before the final battle to drive out the warring militias.
I was in Syria several times during the war with a Palestinian friend. She interviewed people from Yarmouk and this is definitely the truth. Hamas later regretted this and apologized to Syria, but it was a bitter pill for the Syrian leadership. Russia had nothing to do with any of this.
Meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood are banned from politics in Egypt and Syria and some other countries because they do not tolerate diversity. Syria is a religiously and ethnically diverse country. Much of this war was about defending Christians and other minorities in Syria.
Thank you, Ms. Bello!
The conflict in Syria is as complex as any in this era. It is unhelpful to try to oversimplify it with plain binary analysis, e.g. Assad (good), all his opponents (bad). All war is brutal, especially civil war. The divisions in Syria were there before 2011, they were not imported as your article suggests. The country was held together by oppressive means, and the methods Assad used to gain his current partial hegemony were often brutal.
That said, his regime is the best that can be expected in such a violent morass, and is worthy of recognition as the legitimate government.
Your characterization of the army of the autonomous region of northeast Syria, formerly known as Rojava, as a “Kurdish militia,” in league with the US occupier is so oversimplified as to be plain wrong. Kurds have a right to self-determination, the same as any other oppressed nationalities. The Syrians Kurds have a fragile measure of autonomy similar to those in Iraq, and unlike those in Turkey and Iran.
Their relationship with the US occupiers is one of convenience for the US, and survival for the Syrian Kurds. The US intervention in Iraq gave birth to ISIS. It is an irony of history that only the US, at the time of the rise of ISIS, had the firepower to stop its own macabre creation. At that time the US public was utterly opposed to anymore US soldiers on the ground in western Asia, and the US made common cause with the socialistic Kurds, with whom they had no other affinity. The Kurds provided the infantry, backed by US firepower, to stop ISIS, which, incidentally, is only slumbering.
Kurds may have the right to self-determination, but not in north eastern Syria. I saw them planting their flags om devastated Raqqa, an indisputed Arab city, after the US used them to drive ISIS out. They are just conquering what they can get while the wind is as their back. The Kurds are not a majority in the region and are mostly refugees from Turkish pogroms over the last hundred years. They like to think of themselves as following the Israeli model (which entails stealing land that was never theirs because they can, with the support of the imperial diktat). The price is they are serving the US in north eastern Syria, subjugating the local Arab and Armenian populations, and profiting from oil that belongs to all of Syria, which, due to US sanctions is desperately needed by all of Syria. They have no cause there, but even so, if the US were to leave, Syria would reabsorb them and negotiate some kind of settlement. No group in a multi-religious, multi-ethnic state that has formed a single unit for thousands of years can just carve of a resource rich corner and claim it. This is not justice.
Thanks, Ms. Bello! “Like”!
By the way, Rojava is a recently invented name. There is no part of Syria or anywhere else that was ever known as “Rojava”. I believe the name comes from the larger Kurdish project, or maybe from the Ocalan plan, which was formulated by Turkish Kurds. It has nothing to do with north eastern Syria.
Noted with interest!