ENGLISH SUPPORT FOR RUSSIAN ACTION IN SYRIA GROWS

On Friday, the Daily Express carried an article showing that despite the concerted efforts of the British and American political Establishments and mass media, the majority of the English people support the decisive action being taken by Russia’s President Putin and the Russian military in supporting the only viable answer to the Islamist terrorist army of Islamic State or ISIS. Here is a link to the Express article >>>
More than 70% SUPPORT Vladimir Putin’s ISIS airstrikes despite rising Middle East tensions | UK | News | Daily Express http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/611495/Vladimir-Putin-bombing-campaign-poll-support-syria-middle-east

On Friday I was asked by Russia Today whether I would comment on it and here is a link to their article about it and at the bottom of the article you can play the sound track of their interviews with others >>>
Why does Western public opinion support Russian ops in Syria? — RT Op-Edge
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/318878-us-poll-isis-russia/

Also here is a link to my interview >>> Robin Tilbrook about public opinion on Russia’s campaign in Syria – YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM1BoHtN5mE&feature=youtu.be

In my view it is not at all surprising that the common sense minded public in England has not been bamboozled by the efforts of the mass media into thinking that we have got to support some groups of “moderate” Islamists, whatever that might amount to, in fighting President Assad, when it is all too clear that frequently that the so-called moderate Islamists accept the weapons and training that they are given before defecting to ISIS.

The United States has a track record of misjudging this kind of situation. After all in Afghanistan the rise of the Taliban was largely the result of US policy, supported by Islamists within Pakistan, originally with a view to undermining the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. They succeeded in arming and training a huge number of Islamists who then, not surprisingly, proceeded to take-over the country and run it according to fundamentalist Islamic Sharia Law principles. The same cack-handed approach seems to have been attempted in Syria leading to a protracted civil war.

In considering what has happened in the Middle East it would be remiss not to mention the mainly British and American intervention in Iraq, which not only led to the deaths of uncounted tens of thousands of Iraqis, but also the virtual collapse of the Iraqi State.

Having learnt nothing from Iraq, David Cameron and William Hague plunged into an attack on the Libyan Government, led by Colonel Gadaffi, and have left that country in a Hobbsian state of nature of a “war of all against all in which man’s life is nasty, brutish and short”! Both Iraq and Libya are products of a neo-colonialist “liberal interventionist” doctrine developed partly by Tony Blair, over amongst other places Kosovo.

This doctrine is in stark contrast to one of the most fundamental rules of “international law” from the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which ended the Thirty Years War, until modern times. It was generally considered to be a clear breach of “international law” for other countries to intervene in the internal affairs of other states. 

Not only is this new doctrine very doubtful as a concept of “international law”, but also it is demonstrably both contrary to Realpolitik and dangerous. The Syrian conflict is merely the latest manifestation of this Blairite dodgy doctrine. A doctrine which is even more dodgy than Blair’s infamous dodgy dossier which he used as a pretext for war in Iraq!

It has to be remembered that the States in the Middle East are the product of the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire and of the disastrous peace conference of Versailles. The boundaries were drawn principally to enable the colonialist victorious powers to divide up the territory between them. With this agenda in mind, it would not have suited the imperialists to have States which had homogeneous Nation States created with a strong sense of their identity and cultural roots. Instead what imperialists wanted were States where the opportunities for the ancient Roman imperialist doctrine of “divide and rule” could easily be applied.

It was for this reason that Iraq, for example, was created with borders that were drawn by British decision makers at Versailles to break up the Kurds, who are by any usual measure a Nation partly into Iran, partly into Iraq, partly into Syria and partly into Turkey to prevent them from uniting. A mixture then of Sunni Arabs, the Marsh Arabs and part of ancient Persia were then added to the mix to create the new territory of Iraq, which British imperialists hoped could never be expected to unite against them.

Even so it should be remembered that the British imperialists did find it impossible to maintain control of Iraq and, despite the best efforts of the young “Bomber Harris” to bomb opposing populations into submission, the British Empire withdrew from Iraq setting up what they hoped would be a puppet State. In fact of course Iraq, like most of the States set up in this way, has inevitably wound up with a series of dictators as willingness to use violent oppression is probably the only effective way of maintaining control of a disunited, antagonistic and feuding population.

Syria is of course another one of those States where the borders were drawn up arbitrarily to include different populations. In the case of Syria it was in the interests of French imperialism and again a series of dictators following withdrawal of France has been the only effective way of keeping that State together. It is in this context that the American and to some extent the British policy of supporting groups of Islamist rebels against the current Government of Syria has to be considered. I do not think it is at all surprising that this ill-thought out policy has resulted in catastrophe.

If the real objective is to get rid of ISIS the only sensible answer is the policy that President Putin and the Russian Government are now pursuing which is the open and full throttle support of the Government of Syria. The fact that so much time and effort and money has been spent by the Obama administration and his other Western allies on other tactics (including the drone terrorist tactic of assassinating individual opponents), suggests that either they must be utterly incompetent or they have another hidden and perhaps more sinister agenda; or that they have been misled by their alliance with Turkey and Saudi Arabia, both of which countries have been sponsors of Sunni Islamist terrorism in Syria.

What do you think?