THE BAGHDAD SYNDROME
What has happened in
Syria we have already seen in Iraq and then in Libya, but what is already
happening in Damascus reminds me very much of the fall of Saddam Hussein, which
leads me to ask: A new bloody campaign of terror to de-Baathify Syria?
By Sir Charlattam
What can I say about
those moments when already in 2002 Tony Blair was grovelling at the feet of
George Bush and his neo-conservative thugs to indulge in the charade that would
entail a bloody scam against international legality and worse, a continuing
massacre for the Iraqis. When one of my sources on the evening of 7 December
sent me a message saying ‘Al Bushir's jihadists are entering Damascus
unopposed’ I could not help but think of Baghdad in April 2003.
Apparently, these armed
gangs managed to advance rapidly along the M4 highway without the checkpoints
and defensive positions surrounding the capital making the slightest effort to
stop them. How much did the CIA and MI6 pay and what promises did they offer
the officers in charge of those positions? If you think these guys got by
without payment, welcome to reality.
But let's not be unfair
to these mere middle officials. I have no doubt that these bribes were paid and
accepted by the military leadership of the Syrian forces and even at the
highest levels of government. How else, ask yourself, could Al Assad and his
family have escaped with such haste? It is possible that Bashar himself was
betrayed by his entourage who, with their deep pockets and safe-conducts,
pressured him to leave. The rest is history.
So far. I have not
contacted my colleague again, but from this colleague's cryptic message and
what open sources reveal, Al Assad's forces simply lowered their weapons, or
fled (like the Tiger forces) or sold out is another very possible option. A
detail that is not minor and that could have played a role was the ageing
regular army equipment that Assad did not want to modernise despite Russia's
offer to do so in instalments and with facilities. Assad must have remembered
the words of Mohammad Gaddafi when he warned everyone before the Arab League
back in 2008 that they would end up like Saddam Hussein. It is quite possible
that petrodollars had something to do with this. However, the commanders of
these jihadist groups were able to walk as if on a stroll into the main
government buildings and even show up and enter the Umayyad Mosque without a
single commotion.
Here in Britain at the moment there are mixed feelings, especially in the local Islamic community. For some Muslims (not to say many) there is a positive expectation of what has happened, believing that ‘Sharia’ will be the law in Syria and so all will be for the better for Syrians. For others what has happened is very murky and even more so when it is no longer concealable how guys like Erdogan and Netanyahu have started to take pieces of what until a few days ago was a country.
For others like me, all
this is nothing more than a revamped set-up in which the CIA and the MI6 and
MI5 guys are heavily involved, and from now on they will have a lot more work
to do to control the extremist tide they have been nurturing for the past
decades.
As happened in Baghdad
after the 2003 invasion and in 2014 we will see the last thing in Damascus will
be security. The executions that have been taking place in the last week
against soldiers and prisoners accused of being from the Ba'ath party are a
carbon copy of what ISIS carried out in its incursion into Iraq in 2014. So, as
is already happening, masked gunmen will take to the streets, storm buildings,
raid homes, execute people and many will disappear without anyone saying a
word, but with a veiled aim: to sow discord among Syrians. That is what Blair
and Bush caused and allowed in Baghdad throughout the occupation and as a way
of sustaining it over time the intelligence agencies manufactured their own
militias both Shia and some former officers of Saddam's ‘Ba'ath’ party who in
order not to lose their privileges, played dirty for MI6 by bleeding their own
fellow citizens.
What do you think is
happening in Damascus today? Already there have been assaults, executions and
raids on Christian churches and Alawite mosques as apostates. Who do you think
would benefit from creating inter-religious hatred? The same people who planned
and carried out the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Or ask yourself why the
occupation of Afghanistan failed? Because the Taliban was persistent and was
able to dismantle Western tricks, especially the CIA-implanted hoax of
‘ISIS-Khorasan’.
As at that time,
silence and disinformation play a central role on the part of the Western
media. While testimonies of groups celebrating the fall of Al Assad are shown,
bloody crimes and abuses are being covered up across the territory. While
Israel is seizing territories in the north and negotiating free passage and
cooperation with some terrorist gangs, Turkey is doing its part to crush
Kurdish groups and seize part of the oil and gas fields in Deir Ezzor, although
this may be made difficult by the presence of the Americans.
As I said at the beginning, all this reminds me of Baghdad under occupation and the Syrians who saw what was happening to their neighbours then will now have to experience it themselves.