BlairIraqWarDemo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Effigy of Tony Blair from a 2003 anti-war demonstration against the Iraq War (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Earlier today I re-blogged an editorial from the Financial Times entitled Get tough with Syria over sarin use – FT.com. I received a very detailed response from John Gelmini arguing passionately against further intervention in Syria which I am sharing below. I would welcome your views on this blog.

Personally, I do not agree with John’s view here and feel that some form of intervention in Syria is appropriate, ideally with the blessing of the UN. Also I am uncomfortable with some of the data shared by John because I have no means of validating it. However, John makes some powerful points which are worthy of further debate. Let me know what you think.

—————————————————————————————————————————————THE CASE AGAINST FURTHER WESTERN INTERVENTION IN SYRIA – JOHN GELMINI

I seem to remember talk of “Weapons of Mass Destruction” and a threat that was “growing, credible” and of missiles capable of “hitting the UK within 45 minutes” prior to the invasion of Iraq.

The subsequent Iraq war which was illegal (the advice from Lord Goldsmith was never published) saw 775,000 Iraqis die, billions of pounds worth of economic damage, 1 million deaths as a result of UN sanctions, 500,000 refugees and tens of thousands of malformed babies as a result of UN sanctions and the bombing and destruction of the Iraqi water system.

This is apart from the lost lives of our soldiers, American soldiers and the billions wasted and spent on rebuilding that country which is now descending into sectarian strife.

Lord Chilcott’s enquiry which had to be a whitewash to protect Tony Blair, Alastair Campbell and Tony Blair’s inner circle from accusations of war crimes duly did its work. But the stain on this country’s reputation of 400 plus payouts by the Ministry of Defense to families of Iraqis whose relatives have been hooded, tortured and often beaten to death in custody with more cases in the wings does not help because it makes our troops look like latter-day versions of Nazi storm-troopers.

The net result of that war has been to advantage the Chinese who have done a deal with the breakaway part of Kurdistan, to enable America to steal oil (some would call it the spoils of victory), but not enough to cover all the costs of occupation, the war itself and their own casualties.

Similarly, Iran with its large Shiite population now has powerful influence in Iraq and will exercise de- facto control once we leave.

We are now told that Syria has used Sarin gas against the rebels who are, of course, backed by Britain, America and France using smuggled weapons and special forces who have been in the country for at least the past 2.5 years.

We are also told that Al Quaida is active and that we are supposedly concerned about Sarin falling into their hands.

Al Quaida means literally “The database” and they were originally set up by the CIA to fight Russia in Afghanistan, a country which we and the Americans wanted to invade as far back as the 1990s so that we could build the Turkmenistan oil pipeline and seize the mineral wealth of that country embodied in copper and lithium deposits worth $6 trillion USD. Those deposits are now being mined by China Metallurgical Corporation by 350,000 Chinese miners after the Americans cleared the area of Taliban, the Chinese agreed to continue their reluctant support of the Petrodollar and the Chinese agreed to rebuild Hamid Karzai’s damaged infrastructure.

We were told that Osama Bin Laden was killed by US Navy Seals in a daring raid in Abbottobad, Pakistan using a stealth coated helicopter when in reality he died in December 2001 from kidney failure in an American military hospital in Germany where a team of American doctors tried to save his life for more than 1.5 hours.

Le Monde was reporting Osama Bin Laden’s presence in France at a board meeting of the Gum Arabic Company (they make the gum arabic which suspends the particles in Coca Cola and soft drinks for sale all over the world). He was trained in engineering construction at Cambridge University, was a main board director of the Bin Laden Construction Company, the largest construction company in the Middle East and the builder of the Tora Bora cave complex in Afghanistan which the Americans destroyed with a 15000 pound thermo-baric bomb. At the time of the Gum Arabic board meeting which followed 9/11 and the fall of the Twin Towers, the official story via the BBC and mainstream news sources was that Osama Bin Laden was on the run yet the Gum Arabic board meetings were events this man regularly attended in earlier years.

On a regular basis we are being lied to about world events and we are probably being lied to about Assad’s use of Sarin.

The bigger issue is the endgame and what we would hope to achieve by toppling Assad and what the consequences might be.

My prognosis is that it would lead to a wider Middle East War and would make the Chinese and Russia not want to prop up the Petrodollar or Sterling and create other difficulties for us in the West without us being able to do anything about it.

A wider war is only in the interests of the military industrial complex, certain people in Israel and the 21 leading families of the world. For the rest of us it means, death, destruction and huge costs, none of which we can afford.

Toppling Assad might sound wonderful to starry-eyed idealists but:
–Who is going to take in all the Syrian refugees and who is going to pay for their rehabilitation?
–Who will replace Assad, our puppet, someone else?
–Will the Syrian rebels remain within our control if they win or will they get out of control and cause more trouble elsewhere in the Middle East?
–How do we propose to pay for a wider war given our present finances?
–What is an acceptable level of casualties for us if we are involved and how many conscripts will we need given that the British Tri Forces are too small?

Trying to be the policeman of the world and constantly meddling in the affairs of other countries where we have no business might have been our role in the past but the task now should be minding our own business and rebuilding our un-competitive economy.

JOHN GELMINI

Related articles

• Austerity Economics Politics Riots and War: Aug 1914 Parallels for Summer 2013 – John Gelmini
• Syria blocks UN chemical weapons probe
• Get tough with Syria over sarin use – FT.com
• Barack Obama says Syria chemical weapon use would change US ‘calculus’ over intervention
• Syria: we must not rush to judge on chemical arms | Observer editorial
• West fears Syria’s sarin stockpile may get into wrong hands