On 10 January 2012 Syrian President Bashar Al Assad gave his third televised speech since the beginning of ten months of violence. He focused on the ‘unprecedented media attack’ in which ‘over 60 TV channels in the world are devoted to work against Syria’ and the mounting conflict around the borders, funded, armed and organised by foreign forces. Capitalist media condemned Assad as ‘paranoid’, attempting to shift the blame, but on this occasion he is closer to the facts than their reporting. Despite the Syrian Ba’athist government’s history of repression, of betraying the Palestinians and collaborating with the US rendition programme, imperialism views it as insufficiently compliant and has mobilised to destabilise and remove it.
In December 2011, the US journal Stratfor challenged the ‘media attack’ on Syria: ‘most of the opposition’s more serious claims have turned out to be grossly exaggerated or simply untrue, thereby revealing more about the opposition’s weaknesses than the level of instability inside the Syrian regime.’ There are two propaganda objectives: to persuade Syrians and others internationally that the government is collapsing and not worth supporting, and to present the Syrian National Council (SNC) as a credible alternative power.
With Qatar’s Al Jazeera leading the way, the capitalist media presents opposition YouTube footage and twitter feeds as objective journalism. The Independent’s Patrick Cockburn cautioned: ‘Pictured from the right angle a small demonstration can be made to look like a gathering of tens of thousands…frequently the only reason for the protest is to provide material for YouTube’. Hence, anti-government protests are depicted as swelling. As with Benghazi in Libya last year, so now outlets such as the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, based in Coventry, warn of a massacre in the city of Homs to justify foreign intervention in Syria.
The rise of organised violence in Syria is due to NATO intervention and that of its allies in the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) in training and arming the opposition. A command post has been established in Hatay province, southern Turkey, where British and French special forces train the Free Syrian Army (FSA). The FSA has extended its reach within Syria, bombing oil pipelines and ambushing government soldiers. The escalating ‘civil war’ is being orchestrated from outside.
On 26 December the Arab League sent a mission of observers into Syria, supposedly to prevent state violence against protesters. Saudi Arabian King Abdullah reportedly said last summer that ‘nothing would weaken Iran more than losing Syria’. The League called for President Assad to cede power to a transitional unity government, which the government rejected. Whilst Arab League observers were in Syria, Assad criticised the League’s hypocrisy: ‘Has it returned one olive tree uprooted by Israel or prevented the demolition of one Palestinian house in occupied Arab Palestine? Has it been able to prevent the partition of Sudan or prevent the killing of over one million Iraqis or feed a single starved Somali?’ The answer is, of course, no. Is the Arab League being used to justify the destruction of yet another Arab sovereign state?
Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad Al Thani called for Arab troops in Syria to ‘stop the killing’. To NATO’s frustration, Russia and China are resisting any UN Security Council resolution to authorise military action.
The Syrian government has been forced by protests to grant an amnesty to all political prisoners held since the uprising began, with thousands released so far. A law has been passed allowing political parties. A recent poll showed 55% of Syrians supporting Assad; if elections were held he might remain President. Sections of the opposition, such as the National Co-ordinating Committee, demand an end to outside interference. Intervention is escalating and outright war may be mobilised through use of the Arab League and Turkey’s NATO army. The mass of the Syrian people have nothing to gain from imperialist attacks on their country. Hands off Syria!
Toby Harbertson
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 225 February/March 2012
