Deadly New Sanctions on Syria
https://socialistaction.org/2020/06/16/deadly-new-sanctions-on-syria/
June 16, 2020
By JUDITH BELLO
On May 20, President Trump signed into law the 2020 National Defense
Authorization Act. Embedded in this bill, a housekeeping bill of sorts
where yearly ???defense??? appropriations and priorities are spelled out,
was the basic text of the 2019 Caesar Syrian Civilian Protection Act.
Perhaps they were buried here because they didn???t have bipartisan
support, but there is certainly no reason to think that is the case. The
war on Syria has had bipartisan support for the duration. Perhaps they
were just embarrassed by the title, as the bill is named after a
presentation that was a fraud.
The Caesar photos, which first emerged in January of 2014,?? were claimed
to be 55,000 photos of people tortured to death by the Syrian government
brought out by a military?? defector. The subsequent research was paid
for by the Qatari government and overseen by a law firm, Carter Ruck,
which had previously worked for Turkish President Erdogan. The photos
are real but?? who are the subjects? Nearly 2 years later, Human Rights
Watch published an article that was light on analysis and made many
baseless claims about the data. A few months after that in March of
2016, Rick Sterling published a detailed analysis of the Caesar photos
and the context in which they were published. On reviewing the photos,
Rick says that they appear to be record keeping photos from the morgue
of a hospital in a war zone, and included the dead from both sides.
???In summary,??? Rick says in his pdf research document,
the photos and the deceased are real. But how they died and the
circumstances are unclear. There is strong evidence some died in
conflict. Others died in the hospital. Others died and their bodies were
decomposing before they were picked up. The photographs seem to document
war time situation where many combatants and civilians are killed. It
seems the military hospital was doing what it had always done:
maintaining a photographic and documentary record of the deceased.
Bodies were picked up by different military or intelligence branches.
While some may have died in detention; the big majority probably died in
the conflict zones. The accusation by ???Caesar???, the Carter Ruck Report
and HRW that these are really victims of ???death in detention??? or death
by torture??? or death in ???government custody??? are almost certainly false.
The Caesar Syrian Civilian Protection Act doubles down on secondary
sanctions which punish those who would have any economic exchange with
Syria including aid. Though technically?? made anonymous, it was not
killed, but rather hidden in the 2020 NDAA. Even the name didn???t really
die. It just became a meme which refers to the most severe sanctions on
the Syrian people and attempts to justify them. But why, 6 years after
the Caesar files appeared, and 3 years after the claims that the photos??
of Syrian government victims were debunked, why secretly enact these
sanctions now?
This set of sanctions are an attempt to land a death blow on the Syrian
government while the world is focused on other problems. The US has lost
the hot war. They have been unable to poison the world against Syria
beyond their close allies. The Assad government has restored order to
the most populated areas of the country and also houses at least half of
the displaced persons from other areas. As long as Syria is still
intact, the war against them will be escalated on some front. Regardless
of the term ???regime change???, the war is a hybrid war against the people
of Syria. The demand is that they change their identity and their way of
life along with their leadership.
Syria has suffered under increasing US sanctions for decades. After the
beginning of the war in Syria, the sanctions were hardened and deepened
with increased 3rd party sanctions to include other countries in the
sanctions. Either they abide by our sanctions against Syria or suffer
sanctions and economic penalties themselves. The Caesar Act sanctions
have completely isolated the the Central Bank of Syria. They impose
secondary sanctions on any country or corporation that trades with Syria
or even provides aid to Syria. They attack Lebanese banks that have so
far supported Syrian trade, causing economic mayhem in that small and
largely impoverished country. Only the biggest and boldest of their
allies can take the risk of any kind of economic engagement with Syria.
The dollar value of the Syrian Lira has plummeted to 1800:1 from 47:1
before the war. There are rumors of capital flight through Idlib, the
last enclave of Al Qaeda in Syria and other armed groups who are funded
by US dollars. According to the Guardian, the Lebanese currency is
falling as well because Lebanon and Syria are traditional trading
partners. According to SANA, US Envoy James Jeffrey claimed that the
collapse of the Syrian currency is due to US policies. In northern
Syria, Turkish backed militants are moving capital out of the country,
while Erdogan is enforcing the use of Turkish currency in the areas
where his people have control.
People can???t get basic necessities of food and medicine. The war has
devastated Syria???s independent manufacturing sector. Mercenaries paid by
Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey deliberately dismantled factories over
the last decade, looting the machinery or destroying it before laying
waste to the buildings that housed them. Earlier US sanctions have
denied Syria the most basic ingredients of pharmaceutical manufacturing.
Tom Duggan and Mark Taliano detail the list of imports forbidden to
Syria in their recent article ???Western Governments Collectively
Punishing Syrian Civilians with Criminal Economic Embargoes.???
The US is occupying 1/2 of Syrian oil and gas fields forcing Syria
import these fossil fuels. And wheat fields as well. Earlier this year,
US troops burned Syrian wheat fields in the areas they occupied. This
week Global Research published Arabi Souri???s article and video ???Hearing
Is Not Like Seeing: NATO???s Terrorists Burning Syrian Wheat Crops???
documenting Turkish backed militants burning crops in northern Syria.
Syria has gone off the radar for activists, but not for the relentless
US imperialist war mongers. They have upped the ante once again, on a
country suffering from nearly 10 years of war. And so you hear that in
Syria, ???rebuilding??? is being undermined by the economic sanctions, but
you don???t hear that even people who had food and medicine through the
war, now can???t get it. They can???t get oil and gas for cooking and
heating. Their money is worthless and even the government is struggling
to feed them because THEIR MONEY is WORTHLESS.
This is siege warfare. The people cannot feed their children. There are
no resources for the sick and elderly. While the rest of the world is
busy fighting COVID-19, Syrians are finally starving. It is hard, I
think, to imagine this kind of cruelty even as vindictiveness. Even if
the government of Syria were run by a cold blooded serial killer and a
pack of hyenas, which it is not, the sanctions target the people of
Syria, the victims of a terrible war instigated and perpetuated, armed
and funded by the United States and its allies.
The ???Caesar Syrian Civilian Protection Act??? Sanctions should be renamed
the ???Caesar Syrian Civilian Genocide Act.??? And yet, with the COVID-19
pandemic going on; with the dysfunction of our own economy leaving
hundreds of thousands unemployed and food insecure, without medical
insurance and on the brink of eviction; with gunboats off the coast of
Venezuela and nukes moving to the Russian border in Poland, there is
silence around Syria. And, isn???t that convenient. The new sanctions on
Syria are like the knee of Derek Chauvin on George Floyd???s neck. But the
video isn???t playing on YouTube.
When will this end??? How can we put an end to it?
Hands off Syria!?? End the Syrian Sanctions!
End the Syrian Occupation!?? End the Imperial War on Syria Now!
Judith Bello is a peace and justice activist and international relations
analyst who has, over the last decade, spent time in Iran, Iraqi
Kurdistan, Syria and Pakistan. She is a member of the UNAC
Administrative Committee and moderates the ???End the Wars at Home and
Abroad??? Blog. She is on the Board of the Syria Solidarity Movement and
the One State Assembly supporting One Democratic State of Palestine and
the Palestinian Right of Return.
Related Articles
Federal charges against four Venezuelan Embassy protectors dropped!
June 3, 2020
Statement by the four Embassy Protectors, Washington, D.C., June 3, 2020
The federal charge of ???interfering with certain protective functions???
levied against four members of
UNAC antiwar conference registers gains
March 14, 2020
By ADAM BUSTILLOS Some 300 antiwar and social justice activists from 27
states and four nations attended the fifth national conference of the
United National
U.S. vs. Iran: Which side are you on?
January 30, 2020
By JEFF MACKLER On the brink of war with Iran the Trump administration
presented to the American public and to the world the following stated
--
___
Carl Sagan
???Every aspect of Nature reveals a deep mystery and touches our sense of
wonder and awe. Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend
to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will
prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront
the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the
Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will
penetrate its deepest mysteries.???
??? Carl Sagan, Cosmos
