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The Shadow of 9/11 Falls On Syria

www.newmatilda.com/2013/09/11/shadow-911-falls-syria

Published on New Matilda, 11 Sept 2013

“We are in a fight for our principles, and our first responsibility is to live by them … may God grant us wisdom.”

With this prayer, US President George W. Bush vowed revenge [6] against Al Qaeda soon after the World Trade Centre attacks of 11 September 2001. “We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest,” he said. “And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism.”

In his speech today on the eve of the September 11 anniversary, Obama was at pains to distance himself from Al Qaeda.

But his description of the Syrian government as “the forces of tyranny and extremism” could have been his predecessor’s description of Al Qaeda 12 years ago.

Obama declared that “Al Qaeda will only draw strength in a more chaotic Syria if people there see the world doing nothing”. He will ask Congress to postpone a vote authorising violence, saying “it is beyond our means to right every wrong … America is not the world’s policeman.” However, a “pinprick strike” could compound the chaos and embolden Al Qaeda who would welcome “allies” firing from the sky. He fails to urge “those of you watching at home tonight to view those videos” of the beheadings of his fellow Christians in Syria, now an endangered species, and the demolition of sacred churches that mark the history of Christianity.

The US will give time and space for a Russian-led diplomatic solution to the issue of chemical weapons. Despite Obama’s claims that “my administration tried diplomacy …and negotiations”, he fails to cite a single example, siding instead with the rhetoric of the rebels that we will never negotiate with a dictator.

But is Obama, like Bush, really trying to “starve” the terrorists, who presumably feed on chaos? Many would prefer to forget about Bush’s statements given the ironic alliances made by the US. Earlier this year, Obama pledged $250 million of “non-lethal aid” to the Free Syrian Army, a default ally of terrorist armies in “the opposition” affiliated with Al Qaeda. Contrary to Obama’s repeated claims, this is far from a “civil war”.

One opposition group, the Al Qaeda-linked “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant”, was accused of assassinating a Free Syrian Army commander in July. The “Islamic Front” has vowed to impose Sharia law in Syria [10]. “Jabhat al Nusra” has vowed allegiance to Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Given the war logic of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, intelligence and arms are shared and flow freely among these allies. This means that US aid may have easily fallen into the hands of Al Qaeda, the sworn enemy of President Bush, still invoked as a reason that intervention in Syria is called for. Why didn’t the US align with the Syrian government years ago in the face of a common enemy: the Wahabi Jihadist ideolology.

Obama’s rhetoric today marks a significant change to Secretary of State John Kerry’s statement at the G20: “This is not the time to be spectators to a slaughter… Neither our country nor our conscience can afford the cost of silence.”

If the US has principles to uphold, but also recognises it can’t militarily police the whole world, then some interesting questions arise: Kerry alleges that his “significant body of open source intelligence” revealed that “for three days before the attack, the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons personnel were on the ground in the area, making preparations.” Why wasn’t the information used to intervene then, or to warn Syrian civilians and prevent over 1400 fatalities? Why was such intelligence not immediately given to the UN weapons inspection team who were on the ground exactly three days before the war crime?

Moreover, if the US leaders are “serious about upholding a ban on chemical weapons use”, where was their “international obligation” when over 1400 Gazans were killed under Operation Cast Lead in January 2009? Obama did not draw an unequivocal red line that “we will not tolerate their use” against “our ally Israel” because it has his “unshakeable support”. According to Amnesty International, Israel “indiscriminately fired white phosphorous over densely populated residential areas.” These unlawful US-imported chemical weapons burn flesh to the bone. Nonetheless US leaders were content to remain spectators to that particular slaughter.

Whether in Gaza or Ghouta, this selective concern makes a cruel mockery of the principles espoused after the World Trade Centre attacks.

Twelve years on, Bush’s prayer, “God grant us wisdom”, has been challenged by Pope Francis. While Obama was still insisting that a “limited” attack on Syria was “the right thing to do”, Pope Francis said that “never has the use of violence brought peace in its wake … war begets war.”

What an irony! While President Obama in St Petersburg was making the moral case for a military solution in Syria, Pope Francis in St Peter’s Square called for a “day of fasting and prayer for peace in Syria” last Saturday. The Pope’s call was heeded and echoed by leaders of many faiths, believing that God alone grants them wisdom.

The last papal day of prayer was declared by Pope John Paul II in the wake of the World Trade Centre attacks 12 years ago. He invited religious leaders to Assisi to pray for “true peace … religion must never become a cause of conflict, hatred and violence.”

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Al-Qaeda now a US ally in Syria

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/opinion/alqaeda-now-a-us-ally-in-syria-20120910-25oby.html
Canberra Times
September 11, 2012

bit.ly/Nktmow

Al-Qaeda now a US ally in Syria

While we reflect on the 11th anniversary of the al Qaeda attacks on American soil, there is a blinding light that may obscure our view: this sworn enemy now fights hand in hand with the US against the Syrian regime.

The historic State of the Union address by US president George W. Bush on September 20, 2001 is loaded with morals and principles about good and evil.

The president’s ultimatum was clear: either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.

In Syria, there is mounting evidence that Al Qaeda and its allies are actively deploying terror tactics and suicide bombers to overthrow the Assad regime.

Syrian citizens who prefer the secular and stable state to the prospect of an Iraqi-style sectarian state may well be turning this same question around to the US government: are you with us, or with the terrorists?

This week, head of the Salafi jihad and close ally of al Qaeda, Abu Sayyaf, pledged ”deadly attacks” against Syria as ”our fighters are coming to get you” because ”crimes” by the regime ”prompts us to jihad”.

Bush referred to al Qaeda as the enemies of freedom: ”the terrorists’ directive commands them to kill Christians and Jews”. But Sheikh Muhammad al Zughbey proclaimed that ”your jihad against this infidel criminal and his people is a religious duty …
Alawites are more infidel than the Jews and Christians”. Because the new jihad targets Alawites rather than Jews and Christians, does this render them better bed fellows?

By his own admission, Bush stated that al Qaeda was ”linked to many other organisations in different countries … They are recruited from their own nations … where they are trained in the tactics of terror … They are sent back to their homes or sent to hide in countries around the world to plot evil and destruction”.

Yet this is precisely how the foreign jihadists in Syria have been described by reporters. They are funded and armed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. And they collaborate with the Free Syrian Army which is aided and abetted by the US.

Bush condemned the Taliban regime because they were ”sponsoring and sheltering and supplying terrorists. By aiding and abetting murder, the Taliban regime is committing murder”. Eleven years later, the parallels produce an uncomfortable truth.

If only the Syrian uprising was as simple as the Arab Spring narrative where citizens seek democracy and freedom. But those unarmed protests have long since been hijacked by a cocktail of agendas which have little to do with Syrian democracy, and more to do with a proxy war to create a sectarian Sunni state that weakens Shi’te Iran’s main partner in the region.

Bush was correct in claiming that al Qaeda ”want to overthrow existing governments in many Muslim countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan” – who were all US-Israel allies at that time.

But his list stopped short of mentioning Syria or Iraq, the real targets of al Qaeda. Why does overthrowing Syria, using the same terror tactics, fail to attract the same degree of outrage?

Bush continues: ”We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism.”

This pledge appears to have fallen on its own sword, given the funding of the jihadists in Syria. The terrorists have bred and spread across borders, which is the opposite of Bush’s prophecy.

The US administration must come clean about its financial aid. It cannot use one hand to sign a blank cheque to the rebels, and the other hand to cover its eyes to their immoral and illegal tactics. It cannot hide behind ”the end justifies the means” as there are too many innocent lives at stake.

Bush rode off on his high horse: ”We are in a fight for our principles, and our first responsibility is to live by them … may God grant us wisdom”.

If the principles and morality are to be taken seriously, then they need to be applied consistently.

The US regime should be actively and publicly distancing itself from the foreign terrorists and Salafist jihadists that are proliferating within sovereign Syria.

It should be condemning al Qaeda for its militant intervention. It should be condemning the Saudi sheikhs who issue fatwas for an Alawite holocaust.

The wisdom that we see is grief over the al Qaeda crime 11 years ago, yet covert collaboration with this sworn enemy today.

Perhaps the US is applying another principle that they may have learned from their pragmatic Arab allies – the enemy of my enemy is my friend.