From: "Landy & Harrison-Campaign for Peace & Democracy" <cpd@xxxxxxx>
Subject: US & Russia: Stop Bombing & Supporting Dictators in the Middle
East!
Date: Saturday, October 10, 2015 5:02 PM
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Campaign for Peace and Democracy Statement
October 10, 2015
(to be posted soon at www.cpdweb.org)
Outside powers have had a long and shameful history of cynically supporting
dictatorships in the Middle East because maintaining friendly autocratic
states in the region suits their geopolitical objectives. And today those
criminal policies are flagrantly on display.
THE UNITED STATES
Since the end of the Second World War, the United States has been the world’s
leading ally of the Saudi Arabian kingdom, a violent, ultra-reactionary
fundamentalist dictatorship that this year has beheaded more than a hundred
people, possibly more than ISIS.[1] Saudi Arabia is currently leading a
bombing campaign in Yemen that has indiscriminately killed many hundreds of
civilians. Weapons--including cluster bombs--intelligence, military
advisers, and diplomatic support for that bombing campaign are provided by
Washington.
Egypt’s Mubarak dictatorship was backed by the United States for three
decades. He was ousted in the Arab Spring, but when the Egyptian military
took power again, Secretary of State John Kerry declared that they were
"restoring democracy"[2]--and U.S. military aid has been restored.
As Israel continues its nearly 50-year dictatorial rule over the Occupied
Palestinian Territories, Washington provides the military aid and diplomatic
support at the United Nations that make the occupation possible.
Although Damascus had long been allied with the Soviet Union and then with
Russia, Washington backed Syria’s bloody suppression of the Palestinian
movement and the Lebanese left in the 1970s and counted on its support in
the 1991 invasion of Iraq and the "war on terror." Assad’s torture chambers
proved especially useful to the U.S. policy of "torture by proxy," which
involved sending prisoners to Syria as part of the Bush administration’s
"extraordinary rendition" program.[3]
Assad’s usefulness to Washington ended when he drew too close to Iran and
seemed likely to be overthrown by the 2011 Syrian revolution. At that point,
U.S. policy shifted towards trying to win influence among the rebels, though
carefully limiting the kinds of weapons they could receive.[4] More
recently, Obama, along with Britain, France, and other U.S. allies, has
turned to a policy of selective bombing, not of Assad, but of ISIS, and
sometimes other opposition groups, leading most of the rebels to condemn the
air campaign.[5] Washington has generally favored a "Yemen solution,"
keeping Syria’s Baathist police state apparatus in power, preferably without
the Assad family mafia--although lately it has moved towards the "political
solution" favored by Paris and London, which might include Assad.
ISIS might not even exist, or at least not wield the power it now possesses,
had it not been for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It was out of the extreme
chaos and vicious sectarian conflict which engulfed Iraq in the wake of the
American occupation that ISIS emerged, recruiting thousands of brutal jihadi
fighters in Iraq and especially in eastern Syria. This was not, as many
argue, because Saddam’s regime was thoroughly dismantled, leaving a "power
vacuum," but because regime change was imposed from outside by an American
government that showed contempt for the Iraqi people and hostility to
genuine democracy. If Saddam Hussein’s repressive state had been overthrown
from within by a coalition of Sunni, Shiite, and secular democratic
movements against tyranny, the subsequent history of Iraq--and Syria--might
have been fundamentally different. Certainly, this coalition would have been
difficult to build given Iraq’s long history of sectarianism, but the U.S.
invasion stifled any possibility of such a development.
We condemn and call for an immediate end to U.S. military interventionism
and support for dictatorships and authoritarian governments in the Middle
East and around the world. U.S. bombing of Syria and Iraq must
stop--likewise bombings of Afghanistan, where the horrific slaughter of
helpless hospital patients and medical personnel in Kunduz has added a
particularly gruesome outrage to the United States’s long list of war
crimes.
RUSSIA
Russia has been a major backer of the Assad family dictatorship since its
inception in 1970. Since the uprising against Bashar al-Assad in 2011,
Russian support--along with support from Iran and Hezbollah--has been
critical to maintaining the survival of the Syrian regime. That support has
dwarfed the outside aid going to opponents of Assad. Now Russia has markedly
increased its military efforts on behalf of the Syrian despot with bombing,
the launching of cruise missiles, and the announced possibility of
"volunteer" ground troops.[6]
To be sure, ISIS is opposed by many--including by Syrian rebels--but Russian
military involvement is not confined to attacking ISIS. In fact, Russian
attacks seem on all accounts to concentrate on non-ISIS forces, including
against non-jihadi groups. Clearly, this serves to bolster the Assad regime.
(And, ironically, it may also be helping ISIS by weakening those who have
been fighting against them.[7]) Moreover, Russian bombing has already killed
numerous civilians and damaged medical facilities, and there are reports of
the use of cluster munitions.[8]
In his focus on non-ISIS rebels, Putin is behaving no differently from
Assad. Assad has always concentrated his fire on rebel groups other than
ISIS. In 2014, only 6 percent of Assad’s "counter-terrorism" operations were
aimed at ISIS.[9] (And ISIS returned the favor: only 13 percent of their
attacks that year targeted Syrian security forces.[10]) The Syrian air
force, in addition to barrel bombs and chlorine gas, is reported to have
been using cluster bombs since 2012.[11]
The exact strength of the non-jihadi forces among the Syrian rebels is
unclear, but what can’t be doubted is that attacking them is a major blow in
favor of the Assad dictatorship, which is why there have been protests
against the Russian bombings in Aleppo.[12]
Of course, Assad is thrilled at the new Russian role and Putin hides behind
Assad’s invitation to justify his intervention. But invitation by a dictator
provides no more legitimacy in the case of Syria than it did when the South
Vietnamese government invited in the U.S. armed forces or when the
Salvadoran junta invited in U.S. military advisers. Supporting tyrants is
wrong, invitation or not.
We condemn the Russian intervention on the side of the Syrian dictatorship
and demand that it cease immediately.
+++
The great powers have long pursued their own narrow interests in the Middle
East, whether on behalf of oil or strategic advantage, with no concern for
the well-being and democratic rights of the people of that region. There is
now a risk of spiraling escalation and superpower conflict, with grave
consequences.
On the ground, there are people armed and unarmed who are challenging
dictatorships across the region, aspiring to more democratic futures. It is
with them that we express our solidarity.
The inspiring popular uprisings of the Arab Spring opened up a new era of
democratic challenge from below to the police states of the Middle East.
Despite defeats in Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain and elsewhere, and despite the
drastically reduced strength of secular and non-jihadi democratic
oppositional forces in Syria, peoples’ revolution remains the only
progressive solution to the problems of authoritarianism, repression, and
sectarian strife in the region. The intervention of the United States and
Russia, as well as regional powers such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey,
rather than strengthening democratic forces, instead creates a powerful
obstacle to their success and indeed a threat to their very survival. All of
these states fear democracy in the Middle East like poison.
We firmly reject the approach taken by the Obama administration and by many
on the left that choose support for Assad or his regime as the only
alternative to ISIS. The extraordinary barbarousness and cruelty of ISIS
have horrified much of the world. But the Syrian regime, a torture state
that has become one of the most murderous in the world today, is no
alternative, and its monstrous slaughter of the Syrian people in fact serves
to promote the spread of ISIS.
The suffering of the Syrian people, and of other peoples in the Middle East,
has been appalling. Only indigenous democratic forces are capable of ending
the peoples’ agony. That is why we continue to support the authentically
democratic elements of the Syrian revolution. Their victory is by no means
assured, but at the very least we must exert the utmost pressure on the
United States and Russia to abandon policies that allow the dictators to
continue torturing and murdering with impunity.
Notes
[1] Mint Press, "Saudi Arabia Beheads Nearly Twice As Many People As ISIS So
Far This Year," Aug. 25, 2015,
http://www.mintpressnews.com/saudi-arabia-beheads-nearly-twice-as-many-people-as-isis-so-far-this-year/208894/.
[2] Michael R. Gordon and Kareem Fahim, "Kerry Says Egypt’s Military Was
‘Restoring Democracy’ in Ousting Morsi," New York Times, Aug. 1, 2013,
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/02/world/middleeast/egypt-warns-morsi-supporters-to-end-protests.html.
[3] Center for Constitutional Rights, The Story of Maher Arar: RENDITION TO
TORTURE, 2008,
https://ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/assets/FINAL%20updated%20rendition%20to%20torture%20report%20dec%2008.pdf.
[4] C.J. Chivers and Eric Schmitt, "Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands,
With Aid From C.I.A.," New York Times, Mar. 24, 2013,
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/25/world/middleeast/arms-airlift-to-syrian-rebels-expands-with-cia-aid.html.
[5] Michael Karadjis, "Syrian rebels overwhelmingly condemn US bombing as an
attack on revolution," Sept. 25, 2014,
https://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/2014/09/25/syrian-rebels-overwhelmingly-condemn-us-bombing-as-an-attack-on-revolution/.
[6] Andrew E. Kramer and Anne Barnard, "Russian Soldiers Join Syria Fight,"
New York Times, Oct. 5, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/06/world/middleeast/russian-soldiers-join-syria-fight.html.
[7] Sam Jones, Noam Raydan, Kathrin Hille, "As Russia steps up Syria
bombardment, Isis gains ground in Moscow," Financial Times, Oct. 9, 2015,
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f058e1c4-6e97-11e5-8171-ba1968cf791a.html.
[8] Reuters, "At least 39 civilians, 14 fighters killed since start of
Russian air strikes: monitor," Oct. 3, 2015,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/03/us-mideast-crisis-russia-casualties-idUSKCN0RX0D620151003;
Physicians for Human Rights, "Russian Warplanes Strike Medical Facilities in
Syria," Oct. 7, 2015,
http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/press/press-releases/russian-warplanes-strike-medical-facilities-in-syria.html;
Eliot Higgins, "Mounting Evidence of Russian Cluster Bomb Use in Syria,"
Oct. 6, 2015,
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2015/10/06/mounting-evidence-of-russian-cluster-bomb-use-in-syria/.
[9] Cassandra Vinograd and Ammar Cheikh Omar, "Syria, ISIS Have Been
'Ignoring' Each Other on Battlefield, Data Suggests," NBC news, Dec. 14,
2014,
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-uncovered/syria-isis-have-been-ignoring-each-other-battlefield-data-suggests-n264551.
[10] Ibid. (5:1 "other armed groups" versus Syrian security forces).
[11] Richard Norton-Taylor, "Banned cluster bombs 'used in Syria, Ukraine,
Yemen, Sudan, Libya'," Guardian, Sept. 3, 2015,
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/03/banned-cluster-bombs-syria-ukraine-yemen-sudan-libya.
[12] Reuters, "Syrians protest against Russian air strikes," Oct. 4, 2015,
http://www.reuters.com/video/2015/10/04/syrians-protest-against-russian-air-stri?videoId=365825588.
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