USA – bra kongressrapport om Syrien!

Det pågår verkligen ett propagandakrig i etern, i media om kriget i Syrien och om Assads roll. I många blogginlägg har jag påstått att det handlar om ett av USA sedan länge planerat krig via ombud. Har anfört fakta och uttalanden från amerikanska generaler, president Obama och vicepresident Biden som stöd för detta. Nu finns en rapport från USA-kongressens utredningsinstitut som stödjer min bedömning i olika avseenden. Detta skriver Stephen Gowans om i en artikel i Globalresearch.http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-role-as-state-sponsor-of-terrorism-acknowledged-in-us-congressional-research-service-report-on-syria-conflict/5500547

(PS. Det är inte jag som skrivit den, men det är inte fullständigt omöjligt att man i utredningen studerat min blogg, även om den inte citeras på. ”Det bjuder jag på” i så fall).

Artikeln. Kärnan i rapporten skriven för den amerikanska kongressen är att USA är en statligt sponsor av terrorism i Syrien.https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33487.pdf Samtidigt ifrågasätter rapporten utbredda övertygelser om konflikten, inklusive idén att oppositionen har folkligt stöd, och att konflikten är ett sekteristisk krig mellan Syriens president Bashar al-Assads alawiter och sunnitisk majoritet.

Rapporten från oktober 2015 utarbetades av Congressional Research Service, en gren av USA Library of Congress, som ger politiska och rättsliga analyser till utskott och medlemmar av USA:s kongress.

Med titeln ”Väpnad konflikt i Syrien: Översikt och USA:s svar” (“Armed Conflict in Syria: Overview and US Response”) visar rapporten att:
1. Den syriska konflikten är mellan islamister och sekulära grupper, inte mellan sunniter och alawiter. Rapporter i media ofta betonar en dominerande sunni-karaktär av rebellerna som har tagit till vapen mot den syriska regeringen, samtidigt som den skildrar den syriska regeringen som alawite-ledd. Vad som nästan alltid förbises är att den största sunnistridsstyrka i Syrien är landets armé. Ja, rebellerna är övervägande sunni, men så är också de syriska armesoldaterna. Konflikten är en kamp mellan sunni fundamentalister som vill införa sin version av islam och å andra sidan, syrier, inklusive sunniter, som vill ha en sekulär, icke-sekteristisk regering.

2. Den syriska oppositionskoalitionen domineras av islamister och är allierad med utländska fiender till Syrien. Enligt rapporten är det syriska nationella rådet (SNC, Syrian National Council) (vars främst medlem är det syriska Muslimska brödraskapet), den ”största konstituerande gruppen” i den syriska oppositionskoalitionen (SOC). SOC har sin bas ”i Turkiet och anses stå nära utländska motståndare till Assad.” (S. 14) Det Muslimska Brödraskapet strävar efter att stödja sitt politiska program på Koranen, som den ser som gudomligt inspirerad, snarare än en sekulär konstitution.

3. ”Den politiska opposition koalition verkar sakna … gräsrotsstöd” (s. 27).
Detta överensstämmer med en opinionsundersökning förra sommaren av ett forskningsföretag som arbetar för de amerikanska och brittiska regeringarna. Denna opinionsundersökning visade att Assad har mer stöd än de som strider mot honom.

Syrians rally for Assad, October, 2011.
Undersökningen, som genomfördes av ORB International, ett företag som specialiserat sig på opinionsforskning i instabila och konfliktmiljöer, fann att 47 procent av syrierna menar att Assad har ett positivt inflytande i Syrien, jämfört med 35 procent för den fria syriska armén (FSA) och 26 procent för SOC (Lokala samordningsgrupper). [1] En intervjuundersökning i Syrien av ORB i maj 2014 gav liknande resultat. [2] Enligt undersökningen, trodde bara sex procent att de ”äkta” rebeller representerade deras intressen och ambitioner, medan en ”Samlings- eller övergångsregering” med hänvisning till SOC, endast fick tre procent.
Assad har upprepade gånger ifrågasatt uppfattningen att han saknar folkligt stöd och pekat på att hans regering överlevt nästan fem år av krig mot krafter som stöds av de mäktigaste staterna på jorden. Det är omöjligt att realistiskt föreställa sig att han regering skulle ha överlevt under dessa förhållanden utan att ha stöd av en betydande del av befolkningen. [3]

4. En måttlig opposition existerar inte. USA försöker bygga upp en sådan.
The report refers to US efforts to create partners in Syria, a euphemism for puppets who can be relied upon to promote US interests.
Secretary of Defense Carter described the ‘best’ scenario for the Syrian people as one that would entail an agreed or managed removal of Assad and the coalescence of opposition forces with elements of the remaining Syrian state apparatus as U.S. partners …. (emphasis added, pp. 15-16).
Also: The Pentagon “sought to…groom and support reliable leaders to serve as U.S partners…” (emphasis added, p. 23).
To create partners, the United States is engaged in the project of building a “moderate” opposition. According to the report: On June 18, Secretary of Defense Carter said, ‘…the best way for the Syrian people for this to go would be for him to remove himself from the scene and there to be created, difficult as it will be, a new government of Syria based on the moderate opposition that we have been trying to build… (footnote, p. 16).

In the report summary the researchers write that US strategy seeks to avoid “inadvertently strengthening Assad, the Islamic State, or other anti-U.S. armed Islamist groups” (emphasis added.) What’s left unsaid is that armed Islamist groups that are not immediately anti-U.S. may be looked upon favorably by US strategy. However, that “political opposition coalitions…appear to lack grass-roots support,” and that Washington can’t rely on an already-formed moderate opposition but needs to build one, shows that the set of rebels on which the US can rely to act as US partners who will rule with elements of the existing Syrian state in a post-Assad Syria is virtually empty. The conclusion is substantiated by the failure of a now-abandoned Pentagon program to train and equip vetted rebel groups. Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, the top American commander in the Middle East, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that despite the Pentagon spending $500 million training and equipping “moderate” rebels, only “four or five” were “in the fight.” [4] As the Wall Street Journal observed in late December, moderate rebels don’t exist. They’ve either been absorbed into Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrah al-Sham and ISIS—the extremist terrorist groups which dominate the opposition—or were Islamist militants all along. [5]

5. USA beväpnar sekteristiska terrorister indirekt och eventuellt direkt och i hemlighet.

The report points out that not only has the Pentagon openly trained and equipped rebels, but that the United States has also covertly armed them. According to the Congress’s researchers:
Then Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said in a September 2013 hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Administration was taking steps to provide arms to some Syrian rebels under covert action authorities (p. 23).

(Dåvarande försvarsminister) Secretary Hagel said, ‘it was June of this year that the president made the decision to support lethal assistance to the opposition….we, the Department of Defense, have not been involved in this. This is, as you know, a covert action’ (footnote, p.23).

If the United States was prepared to overtly arm some rebel groups, why is it covertly arming others? A not unreasonable hypothesis is that it is arming some rebel groups covertly because they have been designated as terrorist organizations. To be sure, a number of press reports have revealed that rebels who have received training and arms from the United States are operating with terrorist groups in Syria. According to the Wall Street Journal, “insurgents who have been trained covertly by the Central Intelligence Agency…are enmeshed with or fighting alongside more hard-line Islamist groups, including the Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s Syria affiliate” [6]. Another report from the same newspaper notes that “al-Nusra has fought alongside rebel units which the U.S. and its regional allies have backed” [7]. A third report refers to collaboration between “CIA-backed Free Syrian army factions and extremist elements such as Nusra Front and Ahrar al Sham” [8]. Let’s be clear. Anyone who is enmeshed with and fighting alongside Al-Qaeda is a terrorist.

According to Congress’s researchers, weapons the US furnished to selected groups have made their way to jihadists. “Some Syrian opposition groups that have received U.S. equipment and weaponry to date have surrendered or lost these items to other groups, including to extremist groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra” (p. 23).

When you consider that, as The Washington Post reported, “the CIA has trained and equipped nearly 10,000 fighters sent into Syria over the past several years” [9] and that, at best, there are 700, and more likely only 70 “moderate” rebels in Syria [10], then the bulk of the large rebel force the CIA has trained and equipped is very likely made up of Islamist extremists. Concealing this shameful reality from the US public is probably the principal reason the program is covert.

6. Washington vill hålla tillbaka ISIS, men inte eliminera den, i syfte att upprätthålla det militära trycket på den syriska regeringen.

Based on the US coalition’s less than vigorous air campaign against ISIS, many observers have questioned whether the United States is at all serious about eliminating ISIS just yet, and is simply trying to contain it, to keep pressure on the Syrian government.
For example, veteran Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk says: “I don’t think the U.S. is serious. Very occasionally, you can hear the rumble of American bombs. But they’re certainly not having much effect.” [11]

One day, soon after Russia began air operations in Syria, journalist Patrick Cockburn noted that “Russian planes carried out 71 sorties and 118 air strikes against Islamic fighters in Syria over the past two days compared to just one air strike by the US-led coalition – and this single strike, against a mortar position, was the first for four days.” [12] After ISIS captured Palmyra, and pushed into Aleppo, the US coalition did nothing to push back the ISIS advance, leading even rebels to question “the U.S.’s commitment to containing the group.” [13] Assad too has expressed scepticism about whether the United States is serious about destroying ISIS, pointing to the terrorist organization’s continued successes in Syria, despite the US coalition’s presumed war against it. “Since this coalition started to operate,” observed the Syrian president, “ISIS has been expanding. In other words, the coalition has failed and it has no real impact on the ground.” [14]

A tepid approach to fighting ISIS in Syria would fit with US president Barack Obama’s stated goal of degrading the Al-Qaeda offspring organization. Destroying it may be an ultimate goal, to be achieved after ISIS has served the purpose of weakening the Syrian government. But for now, the United States appears to be willing to allow ISIS to continue to make gains in Syria. The Congressional Research Service report concurs with this view: It concludes that “U.S. officials may be concerned that a more aggressive campaign against the Islamic State may take military pressure off the” Syrian government (p. 19).

By contrast, Moscow has pursued a more vigorous war against ISIS, and for an obvious reason. Unlike Washington, it seeks to prop up its Syrian ally, not give ISIS room to weaken it. It should be additionally noted that Russia’s military operations in Syria are legal, carried out with the permission of the Syrian government. By contrast, the US coalition has brazenly flouted international law to enter Syrian airspace without Damascus’s assent. It has, in effect, undertaken an illegal invasion and committed a crime of aggression, compounded by its training and arming of terrorists.

Slutsats I rapporten sägs att i avsaknad av folkligt stöd för den politiska oppositionen koalitioner i Syrien, förlitar sig USA på ett antal olika taktiker för att pressa den nuvarande regeringen i Syrien att avgå, däribland dessa insatser:

1. Hålla ISIS vid liv som ett verktyg för att upprätthålla militära påtryckningar på Damaskus.
2. Beväpna jihadist-grupper indirekt och (vi kan anta) direkt (om än förtäckt) för att pressa Assad.
3. Att försöka skapa en moderat opposition som kan fungera som en amerikansk partner.
4. Att försöka få delar av den syriska statsförvaltningen som partners i att styra ett post-Assad Syrien.

Punkterna 1 och 2 innebär att USA är tränare och vapenleverantör till rebeller som slåss tillsammans med al-Qaida i Syrien, och att USA försöker hålla ISIS vid liv, för att kunna använda dessa terrorist-organisationer att uppnå sitt politiska mål att installera en proamerikansk regering i Syrien, dvs. USA är en statlig sponsor av terrorism.

1. http://www.opinion.co.uk/perch/resources/syriadata.pdf

2. http://www.opinion.co.uk/perch/resources/syriadatatablesjuly2014.pdf

3. “President al-Assad: Russia’s policy towards Syria is based on values and interests, the West is not serious in fighting terrorists,” Syrian Arab News Agency, December 11, 2015, http://sana.sy/en/?p=63857

4. Philip Shishkin, “U.S. weighs talks with Russia on military activity in Syria,” The Wall Street Journal, September 16, 2015.

5. Stuart Rollo,“Turkey’s dangerous game in Syria,” The Wall Street Journal, December 28, 2015.

6. Anne Barnard and Michael R. Gordon, “Goals diverge and perils remain as U.S. and Turkey take on ISIS,” The New York Times, July 27, 2015.

7. Farnaz Fassihi, “U.N. Security Council unanimously votes to adopt France’s counterterrorism resolution,” The Wall Street Journal, November 20, 2015.

8. Sam Dagher, “Syria’s Bashar al-Assad Tries to Force the West to Choose Between Regime, Islamic State,” The Wall Street Journal, October 9, 2015.

9. Greg Miller and Karen DeYoung, “Secret CIA effort in Syria faces large funding cut,” The Washington Post, June 12, 2015.

10. Robert Fisk, “Is David Cameron planning to include al-Qaeda’s Jabhat al-Nusra in his group of 70,000 moderates?”, The Independent, December 1, 2015.

11. Thomas Walkom, “Journalist Robert Fisk explains why Canada should abandon ISIS war,” The Toronto Star, September 25, 2015.

12. Patrick Cockburn, “Russia in Syria: Air strikes pose twin threat to Turkey by keeping Assad in power and strengthening Kurdish threat,” The Independent, October 28, 2015.

13. Raja Abdulrahim, “Islamic State advances further into Syria’s Aleppo province,” The Wall Street Journal, June 1, 2015.

14. “President Assad’s interview with Russian media outlets, Syrian Arab News Agency, September 16, 2015http://sana.sy/en/?p=54857

i Andra om: Kongressen, Syrien, demokrati,Assad, imperialism, utrikespolitik, Krig, USA, Politik, ISIS, massmedia FN-stadgan

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