Rick Rozoff discusses General Assembly resolutions on Syria and how the US and its allies are circumventing standard procedure in order to win a propaganda battle.
“Everything that the West and its Persian Gulf allies have done over the last seventeen months has worsened the situation, [costing] more Syrian lives,” Rozoff said.
What do you make about Kofi Annan’s sudden decision.
I don’t know how unexpected it was for those in the know, but it was unexpected for many, to see Kofi Annan all of a sudden decide not to renew his mandate? Which was to have expired at the end of this month.
It didn’t surprise me. I would just tell you frankly, I believe that his stepping down was coordinated with the introduction of the resolution in the General Assembly, which was introduced by the current Secretary-General – Kofi Annan’s successor, Ban Ki-moon – who lambasted the Syrian government, made comparisons to Rwanda and Bosnia in the 1990s as though suggesting that what happened in Syria was a replication of the precedents I mentioned.
And again, you know, poisoned the well, or prejudiced the vote by his comments. We have to recollect that Kofi Annan himself would never have been Secretary-General of the UN if then-U.S. representative to the UN, the Secretary of State later, Madeleine Albright hadn’t single-handedly rammmed through his nomination and secured his position at the expense of Boutros Boutros-Ghali who was running for reelection for that position.
So, Kofi Annan was the U.S.’s man in the United Nations for two terms. And if anything I was rather surprised he hadn’t tipped his hand earlier in terms of supporting the West’s position. But you know, in fact he did to some extent at the Geneva meeting of the so-called Action Group, where there were different interpretations of what came out. There was Russia’s and China’s, for example, and there was his, which intimated or stated I think even more explicitly that Bashar Assad had to step down as president and the government had to cede power to some sort of coalition. So, it doesn’t surprise me in the least. I think these events were coordinated and then the fact that he received a guest editorial in the Financial Times, the morning of the General Assembly vote, as I recollect last Friday, explaining his position all seems to be a fairly coordinated campaign.
What do you think about: several Russia officials made statements that the resolution actually served to worsen the situation in Syria?
Yes, it does. And everything that the West and its Persian Gulf allies have done over the last seventeen months has worsened the situation, cost more Syrian lives, led to the further destabilization, in many ways made irreparable damage to the nation of Syria, which one would now have to assume is the intent. For example Vitaly Churkin also said after the vote last Friday [August 3, 2012] that to take the vote to the General Assembly while the Security Council was still deliberating on the Syrian issue was a violation of the United Nations Charter.
So, the U.S. and its allies have again circumvented the standard procedure in order to win a propaganda battle, but a propaganda battle that will continue as we were just talking about with the escalation in the loss of Syrian lives as a result. The West and its Saudi allies and Qatari allies will sacrifice the life of every last Syrian if they accomplish their geopolitical objectives, which are not only regime change in Damascus, it’s also to prolong the perceived isolation of Russia and China. That’s the significance of this vote last Friday more than anything else.
Syria is much more the pretext than the actual issue being discussed, because what is at issue right now is whether the U.S. and its allies can arbitrarily violate international law, whether they can subvert the concepts of the territorial integrity and national sovereignty of states, whether somebody sitting in the State Department can determine who has to step down as head of state and who is going to replace him. And the U.S. has done this on a least four occasions since early last year. I’m talking about Ivory Coast, Libya, Yemen and now Syria. And there is every reason to believe that if they are successful in Syria, then they would move on to the next countries. And I would suggest that the twelve countries that voted against the resolution on Friday are exactly the twelve countries that are going to be targeted.
Can you list those countries for our listeners?
Yes. The twelve countries that voted against the resolution are Russia, China, Syria, Iran, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Myanmar, Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
And you think all those countries are on a hit list for regime change?
Each except for Myanmar decidedly are. And I’m a bit surprised that the former Burma, Myanmar, voted against the resolution as it had not voted against the resolution in February.
Why do you think they did this?
I have no idea. I would have thought that since Hillary Clinton’s visit to Myanmar last November that she had pretty much shifted Myanmar away from China and towards the United States. So, frankly I have no explanation for why they voted against the resolution unless they sensed something. If you’d asked me a year ago it would have been self-evident why Myanmar voted against it, because it itself was targeted for regime change at the time.
Somebody has them on the checklist and I think it’s important that they not be able to make checks in each box. And if developments in Syria, that is Western and allied efforts to overthrow the government in Syria, are thwarted with the continued opposition of Russia and China in the first place, then I don’t think we have to worry about the other eleven nations, because of course Syria is one of them. But should they be successful in Syria, then I think the remaining eleven nations are likely targets.
Listen, one last question regarding Syria, which you just brought up again. About a week ago it looked like Assad was all but finished. What do you think Assad’s chances are, and the current Syrian government’s chances are of staying in power?
Barring a direct foreign military intervention, I think better with each passing day. The successful campaign to secure Damascus and now Aleppo, the two largest cities in the country, has given the lie to the media propaganda in the West, in the first place, about the fact that there was no unity within the government, that the Syrian nation and people were divided, that the government had no substantive support…
Yes, they were talking about everybody bailing out, that the high officials saw no future, and after the assassination at the security building.
That’s a good point you raise. With the murder by a suicide bombing of four leading officials of the government, including the Defense Minister and the Deputy Defense Minister…
And the intelligence head I believe it was.
Yes. The reports in the West were that this is “the final nail in the coffin”, to quote Leon Panetta, the Pentagon chief, with the Syrian government and it was only a matter of days if not hours before it fell and so forth. And we’ve seen quite the reverse occur. We’ve seen the government reestablish control over the capital of Damascus as well as Aleppo. And basically what are going on now are mopping-up operations. And it also demonstrates that the Syrian military is firmly in support of the government.
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