By: Jenkins Macedo, Editor/Founder, INDESEEM; Date: 02.28.2016
The US and Russia has finally decided that they can settle their selfish difference over their so-called national security interests in Syria and the rest of the region, after a recent report suggests that over 250,000 people have been killed since the Syrian war started about 5 years ago.
Whenever I see images of the Syrian war, I can’t stop but remember the effects of the Liberian civil war, the war in Sierra Leone and the 1995 massacre of Liberian refugees in southeastern Ivory Coast.
In early September 2015, the world reacted angrily to the images of Syrian refugees that were drowned, while trying to make their way to save haven in Europe. Most especially, the world reacted angrier to the photo of a toddler (a three year old Syrian boy) – Aylan Kurdi who was drowned along with members of his family. Neatly dressed with a very nice hair cut and his shoes still on his beautiful feet, it tears my heart that if I was a man in position of authority, I would have immediately ordered my forces like that of the UN to immediately intervene in Syria militarily with the mission to protect civilians at all cost both from friendly forces and the enemies.
You may notice how deeply hurt I am by the manner in which I have written this post in reaction to the new developments that we here in the US and other folks in Russia, think we can fix problems at all times. We sit and naively develop problems, blow it up into disproportionate parts, leave and just to come back to appear like the good Samaritan. But, we should realize that for every action there is an opposite or equal reaction. The seeds of destructions we sow today will grow and hunt us in the future.
The reason that I am particularly skeptical of the staged role that we (America) is playing in the Syrian civil war is particularly informed by the role we played in the 13 – years bloody, nonsensical civil war that completely annihilated over 500,000 Liberians and displaced over 2 million people. I don’t need to narrate the genesis of the Liberian civil war, but everyone knows that America intensely facilitated the war and drew back when things got out of hand.
First, they (the US Government) provided the escape of Charles Taylor to break a maximum-security prison in Massachusetts with the brilliance of the current so-called President of Liberia who along with many other American-Liberians effectively lobbied the support of the US Congress to support the NPFL rebel forces. Taylor, who led the NPFL force backfired from the initial mission – to overthrow Samuel Doe and prepare for election, decided that he wanted to be president. His greed and evil mindset and attempts to destabilize the region led to the civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone, cross borders attacks against refugees in Guinea and the support of civil rebellion in Ivory Coast.
With Charles Taylor’s ambition to become president of Liberia after months of progressive and successful military offenses against government forces, which resulted to his forces capturing about 75% of the country, which included strategic natural resources including timber, gold and diamonds, rubber, etc. He became determine to violate the US-supported and “classified”mission in Liberia, which provided both military hardware and other logistical support for the NPFL rebel forces during the initial stage of the civil war. With this mindset, his forces were divided and Prince Johnson, one of the initial commanders of the NPFL forces decided that he wanted to stay with the US-led mission to overthrow the government, bring Samuel Doe to justice and facilitate a free and fair election.
Fast forward, overnight in Monrovia, Prince Johnson’s INFPL forces were airlifted with logistical support of the US and early in the morning his forces magically appeared behind lines of government forces into the heart of Monrovia and over-running the defense ministry and other government institutions in the same vicinity killing elite soldiers at dawn, looting, and raiding the government weapon depots. With military assistance from Guinea, the government forces were tactically able to repelled INPFL forces from parts of central Monrovia across one of the major bridges effectively placing the City of Monrovia, name after President James Monroe, into months of siege by rebel forces loyal to both Charles Taylor on one hand and Prince Johnson on the other hand.
Again, with the deception of ECOWAS facilitated in part by the US Embassy in Monrovia, Prince Johnson captured Samuel Doe, while trying to escape Liberia under an agreement with ECOWAS. Johnson got words from his US collaborators that plan was that Doe was trying to escape the country. With that Intel available, Johnson and some of his forces captured and killed President Doe in public.
WARNING: This video contains disturbing image. In this video, you can clearly hear Prince Y. Johnson making a radio call to his collaborators at the US Embassy beginning from 1:02.. “Tango” was the code name for the US and “Sunshine” is his (Johnson’s) code name and he indicated that he wanted to speak with the US Ambassador.
However, before the final execution of the president, Prince Johnson made several calls to his contacts at the US Consulate that he had captured the president and was awaiting their instruction. Foolishly, during the call there was a BBC journalist at the scene who witnessed the tortures and subsequent death, which was videotape. So, it was not surprising that his contact at the US Consulate wasn’t answering because they didn’t now want to be involved as he was commanded to capture and not kill.
But the facts remains unchanged that we (Americans) put our noses in other people’s businesses and when things fall apart, we park our luggage and leave. That is what we do and that is why the war in Syria is partly our fault and that is why President Assad has to stay to make sure that his country and people are not executed like rats when jihadist take over.
A classic example of how the traces of war are compelling in places like Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. Today, Somalia and Libya are two of the most dangerous places to live. In both countries, the traces of our military industrial complexes are compelling. We sowed seeds of hatred, war and death and today those areas are total mayhem.
We facilitated the removal of folks we call – the bad guys and have practically no clue what to do next and in the so-called name of “democracy”, we create a system that becomes so vulnerable that within months and few years collapse under our feet, while we shift gears and point our fingers that other way casting the blames on others. In Somalia, extremists came and fill that gap and the same occur in Iraq after the massive army of Saddam fled.
We had no solid plan to try to bring those folks back and de-institutionalize them and try to rehabilitate them into another system, but rather, those same folks went and form jihadist group 7 times wicked. The same trend occurs in Libya under the leadership of the so-called removal of Gaddafi. Today, Libya is a fragmented state run by militias and warlords on one hand and a pseudo government with no centralized control over the militia.
So, why would anyone be surprise that Russia is trying to protect her interest in Syria. Why would it surprise anyone that we continually try to support and protect our interest in other countries like South Korea, Israel, Turkey, Taiwan, etc.? Russia has long insisted that the problem in Syria has to be solved diplomatically.
We rejected that and forged more towards facilitating a rebellion in support of the rebels that are very diverse and lack focus and clear mission. We continue to send special forces to the rebels held areas for training and the provisions of logistics and other forms of tactical support, while Russia on the other hand was talking more towards finding a diplomatic solution four years before their intervention alongside the Assad regime.
If I was to asked myself this question, who wanted a more sustain and peaceful process to the Syrian crisis prior to the escalation of the conflict or even after? Russia! We spoke one language and that was regime change when the initial language of the Syrian revolution was – reform. We effectively change the discourse of the Syrian revolution through social engineering and surgically proclaim war as the ground for regime change over peaceful and diplomatic process.
We became skeptical of that and we are still skeptical of that. Today, we realized that Syria is not Libya where we just had our own way. For most part, Gaddafi did not do a good job sustaining a great friendship with some of his key allies. If he could have done that, his removal would have taken longer or unlikely. The Syrian president maintains that if there should be a leadership change, that request must come from the Syrian people and not America, France or the UK or even Saudi Arabia or Turkey, which has the tendency of support these same jihadist groups. The war in Syria is a complex war and doing a stakeholders analysis would therefore generate a massive report with complex networks structures.
In the midst of all these perplexity there could have been one group that could have at least make a unify force that brings the mayhems in Syria to a halt if not complete and that group is the United Nations (UN).
Syria was admitted as a member of the UN on October 24, 1945 and as a member state has the legal right for the UN to intervene in matters to protect civilian. The UN over the last 5 years had done practically nothing substantial to bring the civil war to an end. As I stated in the case of Liberia, at some point, about 15,000 UN Peace Keepers from around the world were sent to Liberia (a tiny country compared to Syria) to protect civilian as well as facilitate the process of peace. Why not Syria? Why has the UN completely fell on its belly like a sleeping boa constrictor that has just swollen a fully-grown deer? Why has the UN built a completely resistant cyst against itself that it has in a way facilitated the murder and executions of 470,000 people, which include countless children like Aylan Kurdi and thousands more who’s stories go untold.
These questions and many more disturb me every now and than and I wonder to ask myself, this could be one of my children? As Aylan Kurdi lie motionless on the Turkish beach and as the waters of the Mediterranean Sea washed against his body, it sends chills throughout my body that an innocent child and his family and many others have to died this way, while we watch, wait and see and than react later.
The Syrian people do not need us to watch. They need us to act and the process of acting requires us to stop support sides and take the people at heart. It is the Syrian people that matter. Not Assad, not the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA), not even IS and their collaborators.
We must change our perspective on Syria. Russia is not the enemy. The US is not an enemy to Russia. So, whatever the Plan B that John Kerry referenced yesterday, it better be something that makes sense for humanity, because we can no longer sit back and allow federalist to impose their will on us. Americans are not people who like war. We are a peaceful people and if we believe in that mentality, at least I do for most part, than it is time for us to question some of the bogus policies that is only meant to make the world unsafe not only for us – Americans, but for Libyans, Syrians, Liberians, Iraqis, Afghans, Somalian, Sierra Leonean, etc.
The UN needs to man up and take a more forceful role to effect the ceasefire not just to monitor and observe all parties observance of the ceasefire, but to have a total force presence that is capable militarily to enforce compliance, if not, combat as needed. The United Nations has truly surprise me and I am wondering if it is worth what it is called. The rest is left with you the readers to fathom in.
God bless the people of Syria and may all the little ones who are starving, thirsty, needs medicine, suffering from the untold horrors of war – find peace, love and life. For us, we are grateful that we have peace and it is our duty as shared universal citizen of planet earth to reflect this same peace to others. We need to push our governments to stop what they are doing. They have done so many things wrong and it is now time that they stop.
To the UN, do your job! It is your responsibility to facilitate the peace process in Syria and other conflict zones. Whether or not members of the UN Security Council are at war with themselves on issues of Syria, there should be a way to have a peacekeeping force in Syria irrespective of whether or not the US and her allies accepts that Assard stays or Russia.