Green Party On Syria

I have supported the Green Party for as long as it has existed within the UK.  I think its speakers often make more sense than most other politicians.

However, the statement on Syria, by co-leaders Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley, seems to me misguided. While they express concern about the illegitimacy of US airstrikes on Syria, they at the same time condemn the president of Syria, advocating alternative measures against his government.

Would such measures not hurt Syrian people? When Caroline speaks of freezing ‘the continued flow of arms to the region’ she makes no mention of how supplies from the West – including from Libya via Turkey – are supporting ISIS and Al Qaeda, who, in turn, are killing, trafficking, raping and oppressing Syrian civilians who come under their de facto rule.

Caroline and Jon ought to be aware that there is as yet no authoritative account of the chemical attack last week and that critical observers caution all of us not to jump to conclusions about who is responsible. The event fits a longstanding pattern of trumped up pretexts for intervention that were subsequently discredited.

Which brings me to a point that goes beyond the rights and wrongs of this past week’s events.

For many years – for far more even than the six that the Syrian people have been subjected to constant violence – there has been a geopolitical strategy to remove Assad from power in order to have a Syrian region that is more compliant with the goals of the various external interested parties.

These interested parties, the Greens ought to be aware, are the very same that drive environmental destruction and social injustice across the planet. If you think Assad is the problem, I fear you may not have understood what the problem is.

My reason for posting these remarks is that none of the vision I share with the greens includes breaking up other people’s countries for the sake of the planet’s delinquent elite.

I hope some of the critical intelligence so much in evidence elsewhere in Green Party thinking might be brought to bear more keenly on the narrative you are accepting. My own discovery, for what it’s worth, is that once you start to ask questions about evidence and sources concerning Syria, you realize you may have been misled by seemingly reputable organisations like Amnesty International, Médecins Sans Frontières, by news organisations like BBC and Channel 4, and by UK Government.