- Subscribe to PCF Networked Blog Daily Updates
- Subscribe to our Twitter / Google / Yahoo Daily Updates
Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011. Damascus says outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorists are the driving factor behind the unrest and deadly violence while the opposition accuses the security forces of being behind the killings.
The Western states have been calling for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down, while Russia and China are strongly opposed to the Western drive.
The Syrian government says the crisis is being orchestrated from outside the country.
Press TV has conducted an interview with author and historian, Dr. Webster Griffin Tarpley, to further discuss the issue.
What follows is a rough transcription of the interview.
Press TV: The portrayal of the situation in Syria, specifically what we are seeing happening in Aleppo is very carefully orchestrated by the mainstream media. Where do you see its role leading to as far as things in Syria go?
Tarpley: Well, from the very beginning the lies of the controlled NATO media have been indispensable. They’ve been the centerpiece of this entire thing. The most recent example in the last 24 hours a leading Austrian news paper the Kronen Zeitung of Vienna has been caught in the act publishing in their million-copy press run a photo-shopped image, a photograph that had been systematically doctored of a family man and his baby in a street and they had changed the background to put in some ruined buildings, giving an idea of something that simply had not been the case.
So this is now systematic, what you heard before from Ban Ki-moon, I think underlines his hypocrisy, his status really as an imperialist operative. There is no other way to describe him- systematically biased in favor of the NATO death squads that have come into the country, systematically a hatred of the Assad regime.
When you do this at the United Nations you have to think back to the faith of the legal nations in the 1930s. If you let the United Nations become the instrument of US, British, NATO attacks on independent countries, then you’re threatening the very existence of this institution and I would say that is what Ban Ki-moon is doing. His behavior is a scandal; he should resign or he should be impeached if there is a means to do that through the Security Council.
Press TV: Right we’ll get back to Ban Ki-moon’s comments in just a bit but recent reports have suggested that the West is going to increase its covert support for the armed rebels in Syria. Do you think that despite the way things have played out for the opposition up until this point, is this wise? Because this just seems as the West is putting all its eggs in one basket just to see Assad gone?
Tarpley: I think we have to bear in mind where we stand in the evolution of the conflict. On this awful day of Wednesday the 18th of July when we had an assassination and terror attack on one of the main Syrian government buildings, killing four or five generals, defense minister and other officials.
That was the opening signal for operation Damascus Volcano, which is a NATO operation. I believe it’s a NATO code name and that was dependent on a whole series of half a dozen or more converging factors, including many swarming terrorists brought in from nearby countries. The goal was to overwhelm and destroy the Syrian state, not even the Assad government but the Syrian state.
Now that operation Damascus Volcano has been defeated. Some say the Volcano is now extinct. The death squads caught in the Middle of Damascus have been largely dealt with and the same thing is happening to the ones in Aleppo.
If you look at the trip of US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to the region, it seems to me he’s over there trying to reassure the countries he’s visiting, Israelis, Egypt, Jordan in particular, that the US still has the situation in hand even though this much doubted July offensive has been a failure.
And the other factor that I would point to is the meeting between the two foreign ministers, [Walid] Muallem of Syria and [Ali Akbar] Salehi of Iran. I think that’s another important moment. Foreign Minister Salehi pointed out that the Arab countries that insist on destabilizing Syria in these ways can hardly expect to remain immune from the blowback. That is to say if you sow the wind you’re going to reap the whirl wind and if you foment revolution and destabilization in nearby countries that’s going to come back on you.
And everyone in the world is looking now at the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, the city of Qatif where Shiite populations have now come under gunfire by the Saudi security forces and many people around the world are wondering where is Prince Bandar supposedly the current head of Saudi intelligence? His headquarters was attacked with a bomb about a week ago; his deputy apparently was killed in that attack.
There are now reports that Bandar may also have been a victim of that action. So if Bandar is still in command, the Saudis would be well advised to show him at the earliest possible moment.
Press TV: Right then getting back to Ban ki Moon now, his ambiguous statement regarding the true nature of the conflict in Syria goes back to the whole practice of just telling half-truths to the world. But has the general population you think learned anything from Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, etcetera?
Tarpley: I guess it depends on who you mean. The general population, it’s hard to say. The American people certainly are sick of war; don’t want to have any new wars; don’t want to start any new quarrels.
Then we have Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney surrounded by a group of unreconstructed neo-cons, not exactly the same ones that you had under [Former US President George W.] Bush, [Bush's war-loving Vice President Dick] Cheney but a slightly different set of neo-con handlers and they’re on the full attack right there, they’re applauding [US presidential candidate Mitt] Romney’s trip to Israel where he promises to support [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu no matter what he does vis-a-vis Iran or any other country and that of course means you’re farming out your foreign policy and you’re surrendering your sovereignty to somebody else and that is simply inadmissible. So I think Romney has miscalculated with that. Once again the American people are sick of war.
(Press TV)
Pakistan Cyber Force
No comments:
Post a Comment