WAR – what is it good for? The military and weapons industry, of course. That’s what they do. When you have trained to become a chef, architect or musician your natural desire is to have people who want feeding, housing or entertaining. Soldiers are no different. Without wars there is no place to properly test new weapons and the skills of those who are trained to kill people. War is where soldiers get promoted through the ranks. They like it, as do the makers of death-dealing weaponry. So when the military industrial complex has its hands on the controls of a nation we can be horrified, but not surprised, that reasons to make war are fabricated. We don’t want to believe that fellow human beings could behave like this simply to get rich and powerful, but they can, and have done through history. Hundreds of thousands may die and millions be displaced by their crimes against humanity. They don’t care.

The war in Syria was planned long before any shots were fired. It is as phony as the WMD lies that initiated war upon Iraq, and as unrelated to “bringing democracy” as the war that turned a stable Libya into a mess for its people, a training ground for terrorists and a launch point for thousands of refugees fleeing the chaos we brought to the region. The Syrian conflict is NOT a civil war, but a foreign invasion, supported and led by the US, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Qatar and other interested parties.

Most of the news we are fed about Aleppo is lies. Did you know that 70% of its residents supported the Syrian government, according to a rebel commander in 2012? 600,000 residents fled eastern Aleppo to the safety of government secured western Aleppo when the so-called rebels (mostly foreign fighters) attacked in July 2012. The estimated 200,000 trapped in the east today are prevented by the insurgents from fleeing to safety. It is these so-called rebels who turned once-peaceful eastern Aleppo into a war zone, which is why civilians are getting killed. The White Helmets are not what you imagine, either. The so-called Rebels are good at PR, trained by their Western advisors.

We are barraged with talk of nasty “barrel bombs.” These explosives dropped from the air are, essentially, bombs not made by the likes of  Lockheed, Boeing and BAE Systems. All bombs tend to kill or injure those in a building being destroyed. Respectable branded bombs can cost anything from $100,000 (Hellfire) to $14 million (the MOAB) apiece (average cost of a US airstrike is $2.5 million ). To those at the receiving end, many of the branded products can be even more horrific than barrel bombs.

“Top U.S. arms makers are straining to meet surging demand” for their lethal ordnance as a result of the various conflicts supported or prompted by western foreign policy in Syria and the Middle East. Its boom time and they’re lovin’ it. The Syrian conflict could have been over in 2013 had the US and its coalition not actively fanned the flames of war with men and munitions. It is all done for the Syrian people, of course.  Today they are still fanning those flames, seeking to escalate and prolong the conflict.

The western military industrial complex doesn’t really give a damn whether wars are won or lost anymore. When the US lost in Vietnam and abandoned mission in Iraq its generals did not surrender their swords and America was not invaded. Syria is or was a big stepping stone on the road to bringing down Iran. It was all planned ahead and paid for with our taxes.

It was the US that scuppered the recent cease-fire in its desperation to keep the conflict going. They spin their propaganda, demonizing Assad to justify military intervention. The ploy is to protect the Syrian people from his tyranny (ring any bells?). The aim is to prevent him defeating the so-called rebels intent upon taking over Aleppo against the wishes of its residents. That could bring peace – a major setback for Islamic State and the military industrial complex, putting a brake on America’s grand demolition plan for the Middle East.

This gripping piece by Robert F. Kennedy shows us the history of US/Syrian relations and shows  recommended interview clearly explains the situation in Syria.

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This book explores the alternative. It is possible for us to live in peace without slaughtering each other in its pursuit.

 

 

 

 

7 thoughts on “Aleppo is defended by Assad, not attacked”

  1. Interesting post, thank you for sharing your insights. War is big business and considering 1-2% of the Western work force works in defence it is in the Gov’t interest to keep these conflicts going …..how else can the World military expenditure remain at $1676 billion as it was in 2015…..such a shame, wish those funds were redirected to healthcare, education, fighting poverty and doing great things for humanity instead of death and destruction!

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  2. In a broadcast on the BBC a few weeks ago, Assad’s question was: “How can you say that we are blocking food supplies from getting through to the terrorists, when they are receiving armarments every day?” Typically, there was no response to this question.
    I also watched a documentary (panorama I believe) on Aleppo, and there was the constant mention of the rebel held territory, yet there was no sign of any rebels, just philanthropists rushing to help the next victim of the bombing.
    I can’t help but compare my own area of the World. What if there were a group of disgruntled Englishman fed up of being treated like second rate human beings, who were armed with state-of-art weapons, given combat training and supported by the best mercenaries in the world? Would we hope that they beat our national defence so we could have a ‘regime’ change?
    I can’t believe we actually have to pay a subscription to be fed this information by the BBC.

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  3. Thank you for pointing this all out. It is a shame that the world is facilitating the suffering of civilians by hiding the fact that it is Al Qaeda and their friends that have brought hell to Aleppo. It should be the common goal of all nations to stop Al Qaeda from exploiting civilians and civilian infrastructure. You can forget that Al Qaeda is ever going to lay down their arms.

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  4. Gregory, you are an intelligent man. I don’t know if you are unaware of the larger context to this.

    I make documentaries and news pieces on foreign affairs. I have made films about Syrian refugees in Lebanon – and I have been covering the war in Syria since it began – for Channel 4 News and Unreported World – two programmes that have, between them, won three international Emmys for their Syria coverage.

    From the outset of the uprising in Syria, Assad has been pushing the narrative that he is fighting against ‘Islamic Terrorists’ and that the choice was between him and the Islamists. In 2011 and 2012 this was demonstrably not true – the first demonstrations were peaceful – Unreported World made a film from there in 2011 that showed the, largely young, westernised students and democracy campaigners who made up most of the opposition. Assad clamped down hard on this – and then set out to create the narrative that he claimed at the outset.

    He jailed the student leaders and housed them together with the hardened Islamists in his jails, to try to radicalise the students. Then he released them – and ALL of the Islamists in his jails. Then he systematically set about destroying the only moderate opposition to his rule – the likes of the FSA – while actually ignoring the Islamists and allowing them to grow. At the same time he was carpet bombing Sunni civilian areas with the simple aim of enraging them, radicalising them and pushing them further towards the Islamists. A colleague of mine – Marcel Mettelseifen made a (Emmy award winning) film from Aleppo at the time – and when he returned he was horrified by what he saw – that the regime was systematically attacking targets that had no military value for the simple reason of terror and ‘driving people out of their minds’ as he put it.
    http://www.channel4.com/news/syrias-descent-the-agony-of-aleppos-children

    So Assad has deliberately – systematically – created a situation where he can say, ‘it’s me or Isis’. It’s evil genius – morally depraved tactics – but it’s working.

    It’s simply not true that the battle in Aleppo is between Assad and Islamists and that the Islamists are stopping the civilian population from leaving – I am in contact still with people in Eastern Aleppo and they are there willingly – and they are being slaughtered – horrific stories of barrel bombs and cluster bombs being targeted at civilian areas.

    You know they’re deliberately targeting hospitals and aid convoys, right? A war crime in anyone’s books.

    I’m still working on this story – I see the footage that’s coming out of Syria on a daily basis – stuff that can’t be shown.

    The narrative that ‘Assad is the saviour, fighting against terrorists to liberate Aleppo’ is the one that is being pushed by the government and the Russian propaganda machine – one that is very powerful and widely disseminated on western ‘anti-media’ sites.

    They even release footage claiming to show civilians fleeing to the government areas and then saying how they were trapped and saved by government forces – and it’s all obviously fake. None of it adds up – it just looks laughable.

    As I said at the outset – you are an intelligent man. All I’ve shared above is easily checkable and verifiable should you care to do so.

    I fear – like many in the ‘alternative’ world – your well-justified suspicion of ‘western’ narratives has led you to a very dark place where you are prepared to excuse some of the worst crimes on the planet in the name of ideology.

    At the moment Assad and the Russians are involved in a genocide of the Sunni Syrian people of Aleppo – targeting hospitals, aid convoys and civilian areas. Just as the Russians did in Grozny – when they ended the Chechen war by razing it from the map.

    This is what you are supporting – in the name of a ‘better, fairer world’? How did it come to this?

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    1. Many thanks for laying out the larger context you have experienced, and your views are appreciated. I don’t paint Assad as a good guy and he is mentioned just once in the piece. I see the whole idea of rulers as deeply flawed and hate to debate the merits of one vs the other. Perhaps Assad is more of a bad guy ruler than I thought, perhaps he’s even as bad as those who fabricated reasons to instigate a war upon Iraq. But I don’t think so, or want to be comparing tyrants (Saudi’s etc.).

      It is a fact that this war was planned long ago and I don’t for a moment think the Saudi’s or the US are in it for humanitarian reasons. Most of the points made in my blog had supporting links, some of them from so-called rebel sources. Russia came into the fray well after the US Saudi coalition had ramped it up to a point when it was about to become another Libya level fail. I am glad they did and we could argue all night over detail like that. But whatever the merits of Assad, it is simply NOT Western nations’ place to get involved in selected regime-dissolutions and add another horrible failure to their terrible track record.

      If you haven’t yet, I suggest you take a look at this longer term history of US/Syrian relations from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. It is quite a gripping tale, truth be told. http://www.politico.eu/…/why-the-arabs-dont-want-us-in…/

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  5. This is a wonderful website,
    full of real truth,
    and exposing the lies of the usa government,
    and the lies of the usa mainstream news media .
    Thank you very much for speaking up clearly about the shameful behaviour ,
    of the usa government .

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