What's Happening in Syria?

The Holy Triumvirate -- the United States, NATO, and the European Union -- or an approved segment thereof, can usually get what they want.

They wanted Saddam Hussein out, and soon he was swinging from a rope. They wanted the Taliban ousted from power in Afghanistan and, using overwhelming force, that was achieved rather quickly. They wanted Muammar Gaddafi's rule to come to an end, and before very long he suffered a horrible death. Haiti's President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was democratically elected, but this black man who didn't know his place was sent into distant exile by the United States and France in 2004.

Iraq and Libya were the two most modern, educated and secular states in the Middle East; now all four of these countries could qualify as failed states.

These are some of the examples from the past decade of how the Holy Triumvirate recognizes no higher power and believes, literally, that they can do whatever they want in the world, to whomever they want, for as long as they want, and call it whatever they want, like "humanitarian intervention." The 19th- and 20th-century colonialist-imperialist mentality is alive and well in the West.

Next on their agenda: the removal of Bashar al-Assad of Syria. As with Gaddafi, the ground is being laid with continual news reports -- from CNN to al Jazeera -- of Assad's alleged barbarity, presented as both uncompromising and unprovoked.

After months of this media onslaught who can doubt that what's happening in Syria is yet another of those cherished Arab Spring "popular uprisings" against a "brutal dictator" who must be overthrown? And that the Assad government is overwhelmingly the cause of the violence.

Assad actually appears to have a large measure of popularity, not only in Syria, but elsewhere in the Middle East. This includes not just fellow Alawites, but Syria's two million Christians and no small number of Sunnis. Gaddafi had at least as much support in Libya and elsewhere in Africa.

The difference between the two cases, at least so far, is that the Holy Triumvirate bombed and machine-gunned Libya daily for seven months, unceasingly, crushing the pro-government forces, as well as Gaddafi himself, and effecting the Triumvirate's treasured "regime change."

Now, rampant chaos, anarchy, looting and shooting, revenge murders, tribal war, militia war, religious war, civil war, the most awful racism against the black population, loss of their cherished welfare state, and possible dismemberment of the country into several mini-states are the new daily life for the Libyan people.

The capital city of Tripoli is "wallowing in four months of uncollected garbage" because the landfill is controlled by a faction that doesn't want the trash of another faction. [Washington Post, April 1, 2012]. Just imagine what has happened to the country's infrastructure.

This may be what Syria has to look forward to if the Triumvirate gets its way, although the Masters of the Universe undoubtedly believe that the people of Libya should be grateful to them for their "liberation."

As to the current violence in Syria, we must consider the numerous reports of forces providing military support to the Syrian rebels -- the UK, France, the U.S., Turkey, Israel, Qatar, the Gulf states, and everyone's favorite champion of freedom and democracy, Saudi Arabia; with Syria claiming to have captured some 14 French soldiers; plus individual jihadists and mercenaries from Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Libya, et al, joining the anti-government forces, their number including al-Qaeda veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan who are likely behind the car bombs in an attempt to create chaos and destabilize the country.

This may mark the third time the United States has been on the same side as al-Qaeda, adding to Afghanistan and Libya.

Stratfor, the private and conservative American intelligence firm with high-level connections, reported that "most of the opposition's more serious claims have turned out to be grossly exaggerated or simply untrue."

Opposition groups including the Syrian National Council, the Free Syrian Army and the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights began disseminating "claims that regime forces besieged Homs and imposed a 72-hour deadline for Syrian defectors to surrender themselves and their weapons or face a potential massacre." That news made international headlines.

Stratfor's investigation, however, found "no signs of a massacre," and declared that "opposition forces have an interest in portraying an impending massacre, hoping to mimic the conditions that propelled a foreign military intervention in Libya."