WINSTON PETERS wants the men of Syria to fight for their homeland. By all means, he says, let us give succour and safe haven to the women and children of that bloody dystopia. But, let us not offer a permanent residence to Syria’s misery. Not unless the world is ready to swallow every last Syrian. To leave their home a desert – and call it peace.
The Left finds it easy to dismiss Winston and his gnomic pronouncements. They look at him the way they’ve always looked at people who wear suits to protest planning meetings – with a mixture of disbelief and suspicion. That prominent leftists are now willing to vouch for him only pushes the comrades’ eyebrows higher. “Don’t let the flash suits put you off,” say Matt and Andrew, “Winston’s okay. A little old fashioned, yes, but don’t worry, we all hate the same people.”
Okay, but, really! How are we supposed to take Peters seriously when he comes out with stuff like this? Send the Syrian men back to fight? FFS – the guy’s an idiot!
But when our tears for little Aylan have dried. When the global news cycle has rolled over enough times for the images of the Middle East’s wretched human refuse to have lost their power to shock and shift public opinion. What then? When the razor-wire fences have all been made people-proof. When the sleeping dogs of European racism have all been kicked awake and are howling down the bleeding-hearts and do-gooders. What will we do then?
Because the great engine of all this grief; the motor of all this misery, will not have stopped. Not for a moment will the death machine that is the Syrian civil war have ceased to pump out its torrents of innocent blood. Four million human-beings have already been driven beyond Syria’s borders by the combined efforts of Bashar al-Assad’s Baathists, the Islamic State, and whatever loose assortment of Saudi-funded and US-trained jihadisare currently passing themselves off as the Free Syrian Army. That just leaves another 20 million souls to decant into the already overflowing vessels of Syria’s immediate neighbours.
Who cannot possibly take so many, and so will drive these new waves of refugees northward and westward, following the trail of tears to the European Union. Which, in spite of its name, will offer only increasingly divided counsels – and higher walls.
Yes, the injustice of all this rises to heaven on a reeking cloud of Western mendacity. Having broken the Middle East and North Africa into a thousand pieces, the United States and its Nato allies now refuse to own the desolation their own hands have wrought. They smashed Afghanistan for no better reason than to sate the Great Hegemon’s thirst for vengeance after 9/11. Then they invaded Iraq – this time in pursuit of some delusional NeoCons’ dream of inculcating capitalist democracy in a made-up country with virtually no history of either capitalism or responsible government.
It is such a mess. And all the horrors that fill our screens are the progeny of the West’s intervention. Every hostage beheaded. Every gay man hurled to his death from a high place. Every 9-year-old girl traded in the slave-markets of Raqqa and Mosul. Every screaming reproach and accusation wrenched from the victims of IS and Assad, alike, is ours to answer. Only the West possessed the power to break this world, and only the West can fix it.
But not just the West. The Russian Federation and the Peoples Republic of China must also be part of the solution. A truly global force, assembled under the banner of the United Nations. Hundreds-of-thousands of soldiers: men and women of all colours and creeds, drawn from every continent, to cauterise the bleeding wound that is Syria. And in their wake the agents of international justice – for the sake of ruined Palmyra and its martyred guardian; for the sake of tiny, helpless, innocent Aylan.
And in the vanguard of that mighty host, the young men of Syria: leading the attack; hewing down the flags of tyranny; setting their nation free.
It’s all Winston Peters is trying to say: that Syria cannot be saved by emptying it of Syrians.
From an interview with General Wesley Clark, Retired 4-star U.S. Army general, Supreme Allied Commander of NATO during the 1999 War on Yugoslavia
GEN. WESLEY CLARK: So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, “Are we still going to war with Iraq?” And he said, “Oh, it’s worse than that.” He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, “I just got this down from upstairs” — meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office — “today.” And he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” I said, “Is it classified?” He said, “Yes, sir.” I said, “Well, don’t show it to me.” And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, “You remember that?” He said, “Sir, I didn’t show you that memo! I didn’t show it to you!”
(discussion)
AMY GOODMAN: So, go through the countries again.
GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Well, starting with Iraq, then Syria and Lebanon, then Libya, then Somalia and Sudan, and back to Iran.
Full transcript here.
The current debacle is by design.
The voice of reason from the one person on the left for whom I have respect. He can actually articulate an argument and do it without resorting to name calling.
Name calling is a disgrace. After all Laurel(Steven Joyce) and Hardly(Gerry Brownlee) just won’t have it.
Wow, spinning a strawman in support of a position is still a strawman.
I might have sympathy for your argument, but presenting it as Winston’s position? that I won’t swallow.
They smashed Afghanistan for no better reason than to sate the Great Hegemon’s thirst for vengeance after 9/11.
How about instead, the Great Hegemon created 9/11 as a pretext to smashing Afghanistan which was first cab off the rank in the quest for control of Eurasia (see The Grand Chessboard – Zbigniew Brzezinski), as preparations had been made well in advance of September 11.
Then they invaded Iraq – this time in pursuit of some delusional NeoCons’ dream of inculcating capitalist democracy in a made-up country with virtually no history of either capitalism or responsible government.
There’s so much wrong with the above statement that it’s hard to know where to begin. So let’s just focus on “no history of either capitalism or responsible government”.
Capitalism
Iraq nets handsome profit by dumping dollar for euro – Saddam, despite the restrictions on use of their oil earnings made a clever call “The marked appreciation of the euro, higher interest rates, and the ability to pay mainly European suppliers in euros is believed to have made hundreds of millions for the Iraqi oil-for-food programme.”
Responsible government
“Contrary to popular imagination, Iraqi women enjoyed far more freedom under Saddam Hussein’s secular Ba’athist government than women in other Middle Eastern countries. In fact, equal rights for women were enshrined in Iraq’s Constitution in 1970, including the right to vote, run for political office, access education and own property. Today, these rights are all but absent under the U.S.-backed government of Nouri al-Maliki.
Prior to the devastating economic sanctions of the 1990s, Iraq’s education system was top notch and female literacy rates were the highest in the region, reaching 87 percent in 1985. Education was a major priority for Saddam Hussein’s regime, so much so that in 1982 Iraq received the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) award for eradicating illiteracy. But the education system crumbled from financial decay under the weight of the sanctions pushing over 20 percent of Iraqi children out of school by 2000 and reversing decades of literacy gains. Today, a quarter of Iraqi women are illiterate, more than double the rate for Iraqi men (11 percent). Female illiteracy in rural areas alone is as high as 50 percent.”
From – http://muftah.org/was-life-for-iraqi-women-better-under-saddam/#.Ve_KHhGeDGc
The first step to sorting out the Syrian debacle is close off ISIS supply lines and funding sources. Seeing where those supply lines go and where the funding is coming from would help clarify the picture.
Last word to John Pilger – http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/from-pol-pot-to-isis-anything-that-flies-on-everything-that-moves/
Good points all E-clectic. Whenever the bloody Yanks and NATO are involved you gotta keep peelin’ the onion. Sometimes it seems like an infinite onion too…
As we learnt from Watergate – “follow the money”.
Hold on a second. This is the same Winston Peters who attacked an Iraqi refugee who returned to Iraq to fight against Isis and lost his life.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11439915
So what is it Winston?
Someone’s not happy but can’t be bothered leaving a comment.
Interesting post, Chris, but go back and fight is not the same as become part of an international force.
The second idea is valid, sort of, the first is an off the cuff, flip, unhelpful reaction.
Yes one way or another to the need for the major powers to get some common sense and cooperate, but I doubt if a whole heap more confused, dispirited guys is going to make things any better over there. The quicker the Great Powers get involved, the sooner whole families will be able to return; leave it too long and they won’t, sure.
The fracturing of Syria is a dreadful business and yes the West has some responsibility, but what Winston said is still simplistic and stupid. Sorry.
Syria is a f*** u*, the super powers all have their fingers in the pie and don’t know what to do, or do they want to know?
War is good for business, more arms sales, insecurity may lift the oil price and will create more opportunities for the 1% wealthy in the world, meanwhile the taxpayers in each country will pick up the tab.
I don’t see the USA, Russia and China co-operating on the Syrian issue especially when there are petro dollars at stake.
Food for thought as always with your writing Chris, however lets not forget Israel’s role in all of this. Yes it’s about oil and gas fu**ing Russia over however who wants these countries wrecked? Who wants their resources ? Not just the USA. The Saudi’s insane interpretation of Islam is also a motivator . The decimation of Shia is top of their list of priorities. The barbarism displayed by ISIS is perpetrated by Saudi Arabia. It’s their call.They are armed by the US but they are trained by Mossad. Saudi’s foo the bill.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/isis-leader-abu-bakr-al-baghdadi-trained-by-israeli-mossad-nsa-documents-reveal/5391593
As someone who thought we should have sent the SAS to Syria when it blew up – instead we get a failed state.
That said, I’m not sure what Winston meant Chris – I really don’t. To me it sounded off. But then again I got it through the lens of the MSM, and they are far from reliable. I hope he meant what you are suggesting.
Plus, I don’t feel destroying Syrian culture via a diaspora is doing anyone any favours – least of all Syrians.
Respect, Chris Trotter, for speaking out the hard truth we are facing. Sadly some are living in lala land and think they can “negotiate” with fascist Islamist fanatics, who behead, rape, sell humans and send hundreds into suicide attacks, some too young to even have any chance to comprehend what they let themselves into.
Some on “the left” need to do some hard thinking and heart searching on this very topic, refugees crisis in Syria, Middle East and Europe, and what may be necessary to resolve it.
As do those on the right too.
And isn’t it nice, to be here. Miles away from the mad bastards. Do you think anyone else feels the same way about NZ / Aotearoa ?
Shona & Jack are on to it.
I agree with you Chris,
And we today saw that new evidence in documents released by Assange on RT that confirm that US/UK conspired in a black ops briefing report signed by the major politicians at the time back as far as 2006 plans to destabilise Assard & Syria so we are sure Winston knew this as he was NZ’s Foreign Minister of NZ then right?
I wished these other folks would learn to understand that Winston is the most experienced politician in Parliament today, and certainly no-ones fool!
The biggest problem is that the westerners are quite naive and want to do the good ‘christian’ stuff. That is good, but the problem is that the Muslims have their Islam conservative teachings embedded in them from childhood and culture in their politics and social behaviour. To them anyone who is not a Muslim, is ultimately an enemy that needs to be destroyed. That is the truth and the scary bit.The westerners need to exercise not just the heart, but the head too to be careful in what we wish and do.
Then we are lucky that the vast majority of Syrian refugees are in Islamic countries (Turkey / Lebanon / Jordan). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refugees_of_the_Syrian_Civil_War
The West provides massive financial aid to keep them in these places, so the equation of “refugees” into Europe is not that straight forward.
Swap the word “muslims” for “jews”, “Islam” for “Zionist”, and “westerners” for “Germans, and see if you still want to stand by your comment. Same goes for every islamaphobe regurgitating this sort of ignorance. Every religion and creed has its fundamentalists, and its militants, and in every case they are the exception not the rule. Most christians are ordinary people, with families and livelihoods, who just want to get on with their lives, and the same is true for jews, muslims, atheists, anarchists and any other group label people identify with.
So you want the Russians and the Chinese to be part of the Solution yet you don’t mention them as part of the problem. Russia has admitted to supplying the Basher side of the Syrian problem. the main problem with the UN are the Chinese and the Russians.
With the tragic refugee crises raging across the Middle East, North Africa and Europe now is time to ask some serious questions. When did all this start? Soon after 9/11 former US President George W. Bush articulated the goals of the War-on-Terror in a speech in which he said that it “will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.” He called the war “a task that does not end”.
Remarkably there has never been a criminal investigation into 9/11 nor has there been any technical investigation because most of the evidence was destroyed immediately after the events.
No evidence has been presented linking Afghanistan or Iraq in these attacks and yet the U.S. and it’s willing coalition partners have been at war with these countries for many years now.
In 2002 General Wesley Clark, retired 4-star U.S. army general was shown a classified memo which stated “We’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran”.
When will people rise up en masse and seek an end to these wars and demand justice for the millions of innocents killed, injured and displaced in vain since 9/11?
I think rather than sending in more soldiers and arms, the solution is turning off the arms tap to the combatants. However, I can’t see this happening for a lot of reasons, one being that the world arms industry is pretty much keeping economies around the world going. The United States, for example, supplies around half of the world’s military hardware. There is probably no way it could operate economically if it stopped selling arms to other nations. However, the role of the global arms industry does need to be highlighted more than it presently is.
As much as MSM make out Winston to be fool, he has been around for a long time and understands things pretty well.
He was the most preferred person for PM when he was in the National Party 30-35 years ago, until he opposed Jim Bolger and the Asset Sales by National, unfortunately we are fed political propaganda by the media these days, and we don’t get all the facts.
Unfortunately objective journalism has disappeared and we are just fed tripe by MSM, without any facts.
10000% Jack, couldn’t have said it better.
No other sitting politician has the spine and fortitude to take Shonkey on than Winston, he is our only chance to kill off shonkey and co.
Your timelines are out of whack. They invaded Iraq straight after 9/11 siting weapons of mass destruction as the teason. Whoops turns out that was a lie. There were none, never had any. The US, the worlds super power intends to remain so – even if it means destroying the world to do so. There is more to this refugee crisis than meets the eye. Also the photographic opportunity that Aylan’s death provived to galvinise the West to take more refugees AND bomb Syria. Not sure how the 2 work together but according to Camoron et al one impacts on the other.
@ Win: “Your timelines are out of whack. They invaded Iraq straight after 9/11 siting weapons of mass destruction as the teason. Whoops turns out that was a lie. There were none, never had any.”
Nope, got your history arse-about-face here.
The invasion of Iraq was in March 2003; the invasion of Afghanistan was in October 2001. My, weren’t they busy little war-making bees!
And it’s true that there were no weapons of mass destruction to be found when Iraq was invaded, but there had certainly been such weapons. As the West well knew, having in the past supplied the makings to Saddam.
However, such weapons as Saddam had were used on the Kurds by Chemical Ali (remember him?). And after that, UN sanctions prevented any polities supplying Iraq with the components. Which the West – including the US – also well knew.
Many of us at the time knew the purported weapons of mass destruction were bogus: we protested against our government’s involvement. Hell, ANY government anywhere getting involved in such a colossally stupid caper. Of course Bush and his Pommy poodle weren’t interested in our views. It gave us no satisfaction to be proved right in the end.
Ah, so let’s just leave them all there. They’re the wrong religion, wrong side of the world, wrong shade of brown. Stuff ’em! We’ll be right here in our neo-liberal slice of heaven.
A truly global force formed under the banner of the United Nations. I agree this is the best hope for a resolution. Unfortunately I can’t see this happening as I very much doubt China & Russia would participate.
A good place to start would be a preemptive nuclear strike on the US. Once the chess pieces have been matched and balanced you can then try talking…
Bit of a sidetrack but my first thought when Winston said take only woman and children was that would be a recipe for disaster for those woman and children. Changemakers Refugee Forum, Refugee Trauma Recovery and Wellington Community Law put a very well argued paper to foreign affairs a few years back that was ignored arguing for more family reunification. People who had come to NZ as refugees said family reunification is the best way to help them recover from trauma and move on with their lives. I think the point was that it is hard to move on with your life when your brother or parent are living in refugee camp or in imminent danger. I think one suggestion the report made was we should use one year of NZs quota for family reunification so yeah could be a few unintended consequences if Winston’s advice was followed which i guess is not that likely but stranger things have happened.
115 years on and nothing has changed if they are not blowing shit out of themselves they look for some other poor bastard with the usual terrifying results of rape carnage and death with good lashngs of torture..
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1899-1913/war
Peace in Syria would require supporting Assad’s dictatorship (which Saudi Arabia and Turkey oppose), supporting the Kurds (which is impossible due to Turkey’s renewed war against the PKK), and taking the weapons out of the hands of Al-Nusra and ISIS.
So the sad reality is that there is no alternative to taking in Syrian refugees. The UN does not want to intervene in Syria, nor do any countries want to intervene directly with troops on the ground besides Iran and possibly Russia.
Furnishing all the factions with weapons will not resolve the conflict, as everyone time the ‘west’, Turkey and the Sunni states give weapons to the ‘Syrian opposition’ they end up in the hands of Al-Nusra, Al Qaeda or ISIS. Then the Iranians and Russians send more weapons to prop up Assad’s regime. So there will be no end to the bloodshed any time soon.
I was sort of with you until you wrote:
“United States and its Nato allies now refuse to own the desolation their own hands have wrought”
CORRECTION: While the West hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory in the Middle East, Syria and the Assad’s are the progeny of your old friends in Moscow.
@ Andrewo: “While the West hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory in the Middle East, Syria and the Assad’s are the progeny of your old friends in Moscow.”
Ahem… you really must stop watching CNN, or taking as gospel anything that comes out of the White House apparatchiks. There is a great deal of countervailing material available, none of it written by the B’s or their neocon buddies.
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