Thread: Assad: Syria Is A Sovereign Country Fighting al-Qaeda

Assad: Syria Is A Sovereign Country Fighting al-Qaeda

Syrian president says that the recent American wars have only destabilized the Middle East and other parts of the world.

Kit Daniels
Infowars.com
August 27, 2013

In a recent interview with the Russian newspaper Izvestia, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has stressed that Syria is not a puppet state and that the majority of rebels his government is fighting are connected to al-Qaeda.

Credit: Fabio Rodrigues Pozzebom via Wikimedia Commons

When asked what parts of Syria remain under rebel control, Assad said that his government has been dealing with an “influx of large amounts of terrorists from other countries – estimated in the tens of thousands at the very least.”

“The majority of those we are fighting are Takfiris, who adopt the al-Qaeda doctrine,” he said.

Assad further emphasized that American politicians should listen to the American people rather than try to install “puppet leaders” across the world to satisfy their own political objectives.

“Today there are many Western politicians, but very few statesmen,” he said. “Some of these politicians do not read history or even learn from it, whilst others do not even remember recent events.”

“Have these politicians learned any lessons from the past 50 years at least?”

Assad further stated that the U.S. has waged many wars since Vietnam but has failed to achieve its political objectives from any of them.

“Have they not learned that they have gained nothing from these wars but the destruction of the countries they fought, which has had a destabilizing effect on the Middle East and other parts of the world?” he asked. “Have they not comprehended that all of these wars have not made people in the region appreciate them or believe in their policies?”

His statements aren’t surprising considering the comprehensive documentation that support his claims, including admissions by U.S. government officials.

Last December, Paul Joseph Watson reported that at least 29 different Syrian rebel groups are pledging allegiance to the Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda affiliate group responsible for killing American troops in Iraq.

“Syrian rebels have been responsible for a plethora of atrocities, from terrorist attacks and massacres, to forcing people to become suicide bombers, to attacks on Christian churches and making children carry out grisly beheadings of unarmed prisoners,” Watson wrote.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has even admitted to BBC that these Syrian rebels on the same side as the U.S. in Syria are terrorist groups.

“We have a very dangerous set of actors in the region, Al-Qaeda, Hamas, and those who are on our terrorist list, to be sure, supporting – claiming to support the opposition in Syria,” she said.

President Obama has been openly supporting the Syrian rebels since at least June when he said he would provide military aid to them.

This article was posted: Tuesday, August 27, 2013 at 12:54 pm

Tags: domestic news, terrorism, war

http://www.infowars.com/assad-syria-...ting-al-qaeda/

27 August 2013 Last updated at 05:52 ET

Syria crisis: Russia and China step up warning over strike

COMMENTS (255)

The UN team spoke to witnesses and survivors in Muadhamiya

• How Western forces might strike
• Where neighbours stand on 'strike'
• 'Chemical attack' tipping point?
• What casualties footage tells us

Russia and China have stepped up their warnings against military intervention in Syria, with Moscow saying any such action would have "catastrophic consequences" for the region.

The US and its allies are considering launching strikes on Syria in response to deadly attacks last week.

The US said there was "undeniable" proof of a chemical attack, on Monday.

UN chemical weapons inspectors are due to start a second day of investigations in the suburbs of Damascus.

The UN team came under sniper fire as they tried to visit an area west of the city on Monday.

A spokesman for UK Prime Minister David Cameron says the UK is making contingency plans for military action in Syria.

Mr Cameron has cut short his holiday and returned to London to deal with the Syrian crisis.

The administration has deliberately left itself almost no room for manoeuvre - its credibility would now be zero if it failed to take some form of military action”

Mark Mardell

North America editor

• Read more from Mark
• How Syria conflict affects neighbours

Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich has called on the international community to show "prudence" over the crisis and observe international law.

"Attempts to bypass the Security Council, once again to create artificial groundless excuses for a military intervention in the region are fraught with new suffering in Syria and catastrophic consequences for other countries of the Middle East and North Africa," he said in a statement.

Late on Monday, the US said it was postponing a meeting on Syria with Russian diplomats, citing "ongoing consultations" about alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria.

Hours later, Russia expressed regret about the decision. The two sides had been due to meet in The Hague on Wednesday to discuss setting up an international conference on finding a political solution to the crisis.

The Russian deputy defence minister, Gennady Gatilov said working out the political parameters for a resolution on Syria would be especially useful, with the threat of force hanging over the country.

UN chemical weapons inspectors spent nearly three hours in the suburb of Muadhamiya in western Damascus on Monday.

On Monday, Mr Cameron spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin who said there was no evidence yet that Syria had used chemical weapons against rebels, Mr Cameron's office said.

The official Chinese news agency, Xinhua, said Western powers were rushing to conclusions about who may have used chemical weapons in Syria before UN inspectors had completed their investigation.

UN visitBoth the Syrian government and rebels have blamed each other for last Wednesday's attacks.

Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said three hospitals it supported in the Damascus area had treated about 3,600 patients with "neurotoxic symptoms", of whom 355 had died.

Models for possible intervention

• Iraq 1991: US-led global military coalition, anchored in international law; explicit mandate from UN Security Council to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait
• Balkans 1990s: US arms supplied to anti-Serb resistance in Croatia and Bosnia in defiance of UN-mandated embargo; later US-led air campaign against Serb paramilitaries. In 1999, US jets provided bulk of 38,000 Nato sorties against Serbia to prevent massacres in Kosovo - legally controversial with UN Security Council resolutions linked to "enforcement measures"
• Somalia 1992-93: UN Security Council authorised creation of international force with aim of facilitating humanitarian supplies as Somali state failed. Gradual US military involvement without clear objective culminated in Black Hawk Down disaster in 1993. US troops pulled out
• Libya 2011: France and UK sought UN Security Council authorisation for humanitarian operation in Benghazi in 2011. Russia and China abstained but did not veto resolution. Air offensive continued until fall of Gaddafi

• Models for possible intervention

US officials said there was "little doubt" that President Bashar al-Assad's government was to blame.

UN inspectors spent nearly three hours in the western district of Muadhamiya on Monday where they visited two hospitals and interviewed survivors, eyewitnesses and doctors.

A UN spokesman said they had collected some samples.

Earlier in the day, the UN convoy came under fire from unidentified snipers and was forced to turn back before resuming its journey.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned the shooting and asked the UN team in Syria to register a complaint.

'Accountability'

In the most forceful US reaction yet, US Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday described the recent attacks in the Damascus area as a "moral obscenity".

He said the delay in allowing UN inspectors to the sites was a sign the Syrian government had something to hide.

He said Washington had additional information about the attacks that it would make public in the days ahead.

"What we saw in Syria last week should shock the conscience of the world. It defies any code of morality," Mr Kerry said at a news conference on Monday.

"Make no mistake, President Obama believes there must be accountability for those who would use the world's most heinous weapons against the world's most vulnerable people."



John Kerry: "There is a clear reason that the world has banned entirely the use of chemical weapons"

Washington has recently bolstered its naval presence in the eastern Mediterranean and military leaders from the US, UK and their allies have convened a meeting in Jordan.

Analysts believe the most likely US action would be sea-launched cruise missiles targeting Syrian military installations.

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters on Monday the West had not produced any proof that President Assad's forces had used chemical weapons.

He was responding to suggestions from some Western countries that military action against the Syrian government could be taken without a UN mandate.

Mr Lavrov said the use of force without Security Council backing would be "a crude violation of international law".

Earlier, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague told the BBC an international military response to the suspected use of chemical weapons would be possible without the backing of the UN.

The UN Security Council is divided, with Russia and China opposing military intervention and the UK and France warning that the UN could be bypassed if there was "great humanitarian need".

In a column in The Times newspaper, former UK PM Tony Blair has written that if the West does not intervene to support freedom and democracy in Egypt and Syria, the Middle East will face catastrophe

The UN says more than 100,000 people have been killed since the uprising against President Assad began more than two years ago. The conflict has produced more than 1.7 million registered refugees.



Your comments (255)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23845800

8 Reasons Not to Go to War in Syria

Peter Suderman|Aug. 27, 2013 3:56 pm

credit: delayed gratification / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA


Is the U.S. on the march to war in Syria? Over the past week, the stage has been set for yet another military intervention in the Middle East. Calls for U.S. action in Syria have grown louder following reports of a chemical weapon attack in Damascus said to have been carried out with the knowledge and approval of President Bassar al-Assad’s regime. In the past few days, hawkish rhetoric has grown increasingly aggressive, and additional reports today indicate that the U.S. is no longer seeking approval from UN or NATO allies for a strike. But the case for action in Syria is thin—and there are plenty of reasons to avoid becoming mired into another Middle East conflict.

Here are eight reasons to avoid war in Syria:

1. If the rebels win, it’s bad news for the U.S. Assad is no friend to the U.S. But neither are the rebel groups leading the charge against the Syrian dictator. Indeed, many of the rebel factions have strong ties to Al-Qeada. If the rebels successfully oust Assad, it’s entirely possible that they will attempt to set up a new regime that is intensely hostile to the United States. Intervention on the side of the rebels would also complicate America's already-fraught relationship with Russia, which is close with the Assad regime.

2. If Assad wins, it’s bad news for the U.S. Especially if the U.S. is seen to have openly sided with the rebels. A win for Assad is a win for anti-American forces Iran, which would see its influence in the region strengthened. It’s also a win for Hezbollah, which is closely linked with Iranian extremists. With no good option, then, the U.S. is better off staying out of the conflict entirely.

3. It’s far from certain that any "limited" actions would actually be effective. Most of the talk right now revolves around the possibility of limited cruise missile strikes and/or no-fly zone enforcement. But as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey told NPR last month, the possible results of enforcing a no-fly zone could "include the loss of U.S. aircraft, which would require us to insert personnel recovery forces. It may also fail to reduce the violence or shift the momentum because the regime relies overwhelmingly on surface fires -- mortars, artillery, and missiles." The same goes for targeted strikes. Here’s how Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies explained it to the L.A. Times: “Can you do damage with cruise missiles? Yes,” he said. “Can you stop them from having chemical weapons capability? I would think the answer would be no. Should you limit yourself to just a kind of incremental retaliation? That doesn’t serve any strategic purpose. It doesn’t protect the Syrian people, it doesn’t push Assad out.”

4. It’s hard to keep limited actions limited. As Chairman Dempsey further cautioned, "Once we take action, we should be prepared for what comes next. Deeper involvement is hard to avoid." And then what?
credit: PanARMENIAN_Photo / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND


5. There’s no endgame. Not in Syria, where there seems to be no plan beyond a limited initial strike.And not in the region or the world, where the U.S. would be all but committing itself to opposing, through military force, chemical weapons regimes across the world. The problem is that there's no clearly stated long-term objective — perhaps because no obvious long-term objective is achievable. Given that strikes are unlikely to completely eliminate Assad's chemical weapons capabilities or end Assad's capacity to slaughter through more conventional means, it's not clear what they would be for. Which means there would almost certainly be pressure to give them meaning by increasing America's commitment to the conflict.

6. The chemical weapons “red line” was already crossed. Roughly a year ago, President Obama said that the use of chemical weapons by Assad against his own people would constitute a “red line” that would change how the White House views the Syrian conflict. Talk of strikes has increased following reports of a chemical weapons attack in Damascus last week said to have killed hundreds. But American officials already believethat Assad has used chemical weapons on a somewhat smaller scale over the past year. The latest attack appears to be larger than previous chemical strikes, but that's a murky distinction. The red line, in other words, looks more like a gray area.

7. It won’t be easy. Reliable GOP hawk John McCain has said that strikes could be carried out “easily” and “would not put a single [American] life at risk.” Moreover, he said, a strikes could be carried out in just a couple of days. But the big lesson of so many U.S. military interventions is that they are rarely as easy, quick, or costless as backers promise. As George Friedman of the global intelligence firm Statfor wrote recently, “Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya have driven home the principle that deposing one regime means living with an imperfect successor. In those cases, changing the regime wound up rapidly entangling the United States in civil wars, the outcomes of which have not been worth the price.”

8. The public opposes military intervention by a wide margin—even if chemical weapons have been used. The American public has grown tired of war, and doesn’t want to get embroiled in yet another complex civil conflict. According to a Reuters poll released over the weekend, some 60 percent of the public opposes military intervention in Syria’s civil war, while just 9 percent support it. Support for intervention is still extremely low if it’s established that Syria used chemical weapons, with just 25 percent saying they would support action of Assad used chemical weapons on civilians.


http://reason.com/blog/2013/08/27/8-...o-war-in-syria