Aleppo: Much Ado About Nothing

#AleppoDebate

As result of disinformation from our media and political class, we are now utterly deluded about our military role in the Middle East. Calls for anti-war protests outside the Russian embassy were a higher priority for Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, than de-escalating the conflict and delivering humanitarian aid. In Parliament, the UK continued to ignore its own track record of air strikes which have been killing scores of innocent Syrian civilian men, women and children. The British establishment won’t acknowledge (let alone count) the innocent dead, decapitated by drone and air strike or incinerated in their beds, and it continues to refuse to do so. And so it came to pass that the people were lead to believe the UK’S involvement was somehow different to Russia’s. It isn’t. MPs and the media refused to acknowledge this inconvenient reality before the UK Parliament’s ten hour debate on 2nd December 2015 to formally sanction military action in Syria (which was already taking place), with MPs such as David Burrows and heir-to-Blair Dan Jarvis wilfully misleading Parliament on the issue. This dehumanisation rationale persists from Iraq, where anyone killed by allies have been assumed to be an enemy combatant. Only those the allies count, count. When a 6 month old Syrian baby asleep in her crib is struck by British air strike, she is designated an enemy combatant killing. Remarkably, it is down to a greiving surviving family to fight an administrative battle to have this legal designation corrected. Which of course, never happens. It is beyond sick.

The UK is in the midst of a program of decades-long support for Assad and his ilk. Assad senior thought little of murdering 40,000 fellow Syrians in Hama to quell the challenge to his authority in the 1980s. Under our silently muttering gaze. Opposed by a united Syrian social movement lead by Shia, Yazidi, Christian and Sunni interests, the Assads are being backed to the hilt by the West to maintain control. As permanent secretaries know but won’t say in good company: it’s a price worth paying to keep the proper order. The anti-democratic establishment of the minority fringe Alawite community as tyrannical rulers in Syria was always going to be a mess. It’s the equivalent of installing Ahmadiyyas as the ruling military junta in Pakistan. Our role, if anything, should be to support representative democracy through diplomacy.

Over the last 50 years, the UK has poured arms into the Middle East to maintain control over the region. The UK has been arming and training Saudis to massacre Yemenis with claims of war crimes and human rights violations from many quarters. Graciously, we have even been sending British personnel to ensure the job is done. Lest we forget the Wikileaks revelations which informed us how in advance of this, the US had been actively negotiating and disarming Yemeni civilians of arms — specifically those pesky surface-to-air munitions (which were bizarrely common and widespread in Yemen), even bribing senior Yemeni government and cabinet officials to facilitate it. Military dominance in the Middle East is predicated on air supremacy.

Iraq. Israel. Palestine. Egypt. What horrors have not been carried out under a blood-soaked flag of Western democracy which did everything but to ensure democracy existed across the ruled world.

Hypocrisies Abound.

During Andrew Mitchell’s well-won Commons debate on Aleppo, UK politicians had the cojones to deploy the "yeah but Russia" defence. The same failed moral relativism of Donald’s #WorseThanTrump strategy of pointing at Bill Clinton to defend his own sexual abuse and molestation of women. It wouldn’t be a surprise if we found out Trump’s Obama-birther debacle was merely to deflect the spotlight from illuminating us about his immigrant German Nazi father who fled to America and joined the KKK.

Of those few, too unaware of their own debilitating immorality or too arrogant not to stay quiet on the issue and preferring to double-down, as first amongst these degenerates it was down to the Henry Jackson Society’s - EDL Tommy Robinson supporting - Quilliam Foundation sponsoring - clash of civilisation narrative peddling - Trojan Horse crusading - crippler of our education and justice systems, Michael Gove (remember him?). Mrs May’s nemesis stood in the Commons to try and explain how UK killing of innocent civilians in support of Assad, was “not like” Russia. At last count there are 14 nations tonight using Syria as a feeding frenzy of bombing, pipelines, political sycophancy and strategic interests.

Peace by its nature requires an often uneasy cessation in armed conflict. It is never absolute but it has to start with de-escalation, disarmament and with talk. But before the household gets its affairs in order, someone has to turn the lights up, declare the party is over and to send the guests home. In so far as Syria is concerned, it’s time for the West to go home and take their armies with them. And then preferably to stay there.

Hypocrisies abound. We have seen European political leaders have the gall to oppose Syrian refugees fleeing death from arriving in Europe as a result of our actions. We would rather push them into the sea. Nor would Arab-speaking MP Tom Tugendhat’s effort be wasted on the Arabs; they call it speaking from both sides of your mouth. Each time I’ve seen him in the Commons, the ex-forces man seems to be calling for war. To help the Arabs, naturally. More death. You know, for peace. #Arabsplaining. Evidently, even the Knesset has for some time been thinking about Haleb (Aleppo) and looking for a large slice of the Arab pie to establish it’s oft-repeated plan for Greater Israel.

And how very close it all now is, as the UN’s assessment by Staffan de Mistura states Eastern Aleppo with its 275,000 inhabitants denied humanitarian aid, may be all but entirely destroyed by the end of 2016.

History teaches us that things don’t happen by accident. It’s remarkably comforting but don’t ever let yourself slip into that intellectual analgesia. Never think things like this happen by accident. When politicians are waxing lyrical, impassioned and honourable, then truly is the time to stop, think for a moment, and resist the call. It’s never as we are lead to believe.

The debate about Aleppo was about little more than extolling platitudes and ensuring nothing. Israel, the US, Iran, the UK, Russia — all need Assad in power. Even if he is to rule over a pile of rubble and carry out a genocide. It’s not the first time we’ve done this. We’re past masters. You see, it’s all in plain sight.