Through their (in)direct support of Assad, the Stop the War Coalition blindly ignore Russia's own imperialistic goals in the region and prove themselves anything but anti-war.
Noor Barotchi is a British-Syrian national who is a founding member of Bradford Syria Solidarity and a volunteer with the humanitarian aid charities Hand in Hand for Syria and Syria Relief
They call themselves an anti-war movement. Set up in 2001 in the UK to counter the Bush Administration’s ‘War on Terror’, the Stop the War Coalition claims to defend civil liberties.
And yet their binary vision of ‘West equals evil/anti-West equals good’ has led them and other self-professed ‘anti-imperialists’ to adopt a utilitarian vision of the conflict in Syria.
Far from standing with the oppressed, their stance has proven that Syrian blood means little. Most recently, they invited Lebanese-Palestinian nun Mother Agnes Mariam to speak at their International Anti-War Conference, who preaches that Assad is a protector of minorities and all havoc in the country has been caused by militant Sunni jihadists.
The hypocrisy lies in the fact that her views and actions make her the exact opposite of anti-war.
Unfortunately, Agnes Mariam has exploited her religious status to be an accessory to mass murder. Syrian Christians for Peace and Father Paolo Dall’Oglio, an Italian Jesuit priest based in Syria who is now missing (believed to have been kidnapped by the Al-Qaida affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), have called Sister Agnes a regime agent, the latter claiming that her “interpretation of the facts is always selective and one-sided”.
In 2012, she blamed the Houla massacre on the rebels, claiming that the victims were Alawites and Shia converts. This contradicted the United Nations’ investigation, which found government forces and Shabeeha [paid regime militia] culpable.
Mo’dhamiya (Damascus countryside) has been besieged for almost a year. Civilians living inside are dying of starvation due to the strict blockade imposed by the Syrian government, which prevents food, water and medical supplies getting in. Agnes Mariam allegedly encouraged civilians to evacuate the area by saying that “it is better if unarmed civilians surrender and turn themselves in”. In doing so, she was complicit in the detainment of 200 plus civilians from the area, the fate of whom presently remains unknown.
When the chemical weapons attack was perpetrated in Ghouta, she presented ‘evidence’ to the U.N. to try and pin the blame on the rebels. First, she determined that the videos were “manipulated and disposed with theatrical arrangements.” She then concluded that the children shown in the video were actually Alawite children kidnapped from Latakia (the same line was given by Bouthaina Shaaban, the political and media advisor to Assad).
Her polemics, however, were refuted by many organisations, including Human Rights Watch, who issued a statement saying: “there’s just no basis for the claims advanced by Mother Agnes.”
Agnes Mariam has now ‘withdrawn’ from the conference after two keynote speakers, Jeremy Scahill and Owen Jones, refused to share a platform with her. While this is news worthy of celebration, we should not forgive nor forget the fact that StWC invited her in the first place. Through their (in)direct support of Assad, they blindly ignore Russia’s own imperialistic goals in the region and prove themselves anything but anti-war.
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43 Responses to “The British ‘anti-war’ movement’s hypocrisy over Syria”
Dee
Roderick – it is of great interest to me to know what your expectations of your own govt would be if :
– You are placed on someone’s Axis of Evil – because you don’t support the genocidal expansionism of a foreign military outpost for Empire in your region.
– As per wiki and Stratfor leaks, there is a long planned strategy to destroy your govt and leave it a festering balkanised sectarian bloodbath like Iraq and Libya. The worlds most powerful nations sit in GCHQ and Pentagon planning with regional allies how to destabilise and destroy.
– The water cut off from a stolen region – Golan Hts – now occupied by the Empire’s military outpost (purporting to be a religious tribal nation) exacerbated by 2years of drought causes some social malcontent in your nation.
– Peaceful demonstrations are immediately incited to turn violent – as per the long planned strategy; snipers (whose?) ensure bloodshed; scores of police are killed, property damaged and looted in the ensuing violence – the police lose control.
– Peaceful demonstrators suddenly find themselves outnumbered by recruited mercenary / paid ‘protesters’ – directed and managed by professionals.
– The army is brought in to restore order. They meet opposition from ‘rebels’ – also funded by foreign sources.
– The ‘rebels’ rapidly find they are outnumbered by Wahhabi savages – intent on killing your fellow countrymen not of their perverted fundamentalist views – killing by decapitation, cutting out liver and heart of their live captives, destroying churches, raping, pillaging …..
WHAT WOULD YOU EXPECT YOUR GOVERNMENT TO DO?
WHAT WOULD YOUR GOVT ASK OF IT’s ALLIES?
Hand over to the foreign Wahhabi terrorist savages – who kill both the minority legitimate ‘Syrian rebels’ , Syrian armed forces, children, civilians, priests, Imams ….. ?
Lie down and die – or leave the country – to turn into yet another Iraq or Libya WITH ZERO DEMOCRACY. PEACE NOR STABILITY?
So tell me Rhoderick – why are Russia and China villains for helping IN THE FIGHT AGAINST TERRORISM – that every western nation purports to be doing … yet oddly enough, with all the NSA-GCQH-European SPYING and vast networks of intelligence agencies – has not apprehended one of the many 1000’s of European (Brit, Dutch, German, Danish, French etc etc) terrortists – let alone the Saudi Al CIAda’s, Chechen etc terrorists traversing the world and freely crossing from Turkey and other neighbouring countries into Syria?
If there was a SHRED of integrity from western powers – they would be helping Assad rid his nation of extremist terrorists. AND THAT IS WHY RUSSIA ARE HEROES TO THE VAST MAJORITY OF THE WORLS POPULACE … of course not in the propagandised-brain-dead west however.
rhoderickgates
Neither of the two countries I am a citizen of have an ‘Axis of Evil list’. It is, afterall, a political soundbite that was uttered by a US President no longer in office.
When it comes to tactics, there is such a thing as using direct weapons, instead of indiscriminate weapons. And don’t resort to air-strikes in population centers; because even direct aircaft bombs can miss & kill civilian bystanders.
Dee
Neither you nor I are expert in the warfare of MASS URBAN TERRORISM, but I would hazard a guess yours is a more naïve view if you believe that former presidents list was just a list and the pentagon plans were scrapped when the nobel peace prize winner took office and bombarded Libya, and the hawks and the dual citizen congressmen changed their agenda after Hellary the Hag from Hades declared ‘we came we saw he died hahahaha’ after the slaughter of Gaddafi and his corpse obscenely displayed like a hunting safari trophy on western media.
But I do like your thinking. Pity it was not applied nor condemned in the ‘standard invasion & occupation warfare’ in Iraq, Libya, deliberately avoided in the mass bombardment of Gaza at the exact time children were leaving school … nor applied in the ongoing drone strikes in Yemen, Pakistan and all the other ‘Pipe-line-istans’ so called War oF Terror.
But should your 2 home nations ever be overrun by wahabbi savage terrorists, I’m sure they will be very considerate and not use the well known tactics of targeting and shielding themselves in schools and urban areas – and so a little aiming for the feet type gentlemans duel can be carried out.
rhoderickgates
Are you going to return to the topic eventually?
Dee
Your response gave the direction. If you have no rebuttal – I bid you Pax, Vrede, Paz, Frida, صلح and above all – on topic : Мир