Arab League Pushes for UN Invasion of Syria

Source: AntiWar.com
Jason Ditz

With their monitors withdrawn from the nation and their last UN Security Council resolution in shambles, the Arab League has voted today to push for a full scale United Nations invasion of the troubled nation of Syria.

Saying the move would “put additional pressure” on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the league says it wants to create a “joint” force of Arab League and United Nations “peacekeepers” as well as backing the various rebel factions.

Exactly what the proposal would accomplish is unclear, as the Arab League could not even pass a resolution that explicitly rejected military intervention through the UN Security Council. Analysts say the call for an attack is “symbolic.”

But symbolic of what, it isn’t clear. Syria’s government of course has rejected this “plan” and there is no chance either Russia or China is going to allow the UN to agree to it either. The net effect, then, is to further alienate Syria from the Arab League.

How the Arab League Has Become a Tool of Western Imperialism

Source: Global Research
Finian Cunningham

It’s an intrigue befitting the machinations of classical colonialism in past centuries, such as the Sykes-Picot carve-up of the Middle Eastern Levant territories, or the betrayal of the Arabs after World War I, or the theft of Mesopotamia’s oil by British capitalists.

Only this time, it is Arabs who are helping the neocolonial powers to deceive and subjugate other Arabs. Enter the Arab League.

Over the past year, the 22-member organization has emerged as a useful deceptive cover for Western powers as they seek to redraw the political contours of the Arab World, and beyond, for their own strategic interests.

The momentous popular upheavals that began in early 2011 across the Arab World have in many ways been co-opted or manipulated by Western imperialist powers to minimize democratic gains and to refashion the political map to their continuing advantage. A feat of achievement considering that these same powers have for decades supported the repressive regimes that have inflicted so much misery and suffering.

The leitmotif for Western intervention is “responsibility to protect” (R2P) – the notion that these powers are motivated by concern for human rights and the protection of civilian lives. But given that the United States, Britain, France and other NATO states have been conducting criminal wars of aggression over the past decade in mainly Muslim lands, with a death toll exceeding one million and casualties amounting to many more millions, these powers found themselves with a huge credibility problem when it came to contriving a pretext to intervene in the Arab upheavals.

What better than to shroud the Western agenda for intervention in Arab affairs with an appearance of Arab support? The League of Arab States has fulfilled this role. Since its inception in 1945, it has only ever suspended two member states. The first of these was Libya in March 2011; the second is Syria, suspended eight months later in November.

Exposed: The Arab Agenda in Syria

Source: Asia Times
Pepe Escobar

Here's a crash course on the "democratic" machinations of the Arab League - rather the GCC League, as real power in this pan-Arab organization is wielded by two of the six Persian Gulf monarchies composing the Gulf Cooperation Council, also known as Gulf Counter-revolution Club; Qatar and the House of Saud.

Essentially, the GCC created an Arab League group to monitor what's going on in Syria. The Syrian National Council - based in North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member countries Turkey and France - enthusiastically supported it. It's telling that Syria's neighbor Lebanon did not.

When the over 160 monitors, after one month of enquiries, issued their report ... surprise! The report did not follow the official GCC line - which is that the "evil" Bashar al-Assad government is indiscriminately, and unilaterally, killing its own people, and so regime change is in order.

indiscriminately, and unilaterally, killing its own people, and so regime change is in order.

The Arab League's Ministerial Committee had approved the report, with four votes in favor (Algeria, Egypt, Sudan and GCC member Oman) and only one against; guess who, Qatar - which is now presiding the Arab League because the emirate bought their (rotating) turn from the Palestinian Authority.

So the report was either ignored (by Western corporate media) or mercilessly destroyed - by Arab media, virtually all of it financed by either the House of Saud or Qatar. It was not even discussed - because it was prevented by the GCC from being translated from Arabic into English and published in the Arab League's website.

Until it was leaked. Here it is, in full.

The report is adamant. There was no organized, lethal repression by the Syrian government against peaceful protesters. Instead, the report points to shady armed gangs as responsible for hundreds of deaths among Syrian civilians, and over one thousand among the Syrian army, using lethal tactics such as bombing of civilian buses, bombing of trains carrying diesel oil, bombing of police buses and bombing of bridges and pipelines.

Arab League in Syria: A Pre-Ordained Conclusion

Source: RT
James Corbett

The Syrian government has released 755 detainees as Arab League monitors continue their mission to stop nine months of violence that has killed thousands. However, doubts remain on both sides that the observers can provide a neutral verdict.

­The release of the detainees Wednesday follows the three-pronged Arab League plan that will see Damascus withdrawal government troops from residential areas, release prisoners and begin talks with the opposition.

The report comes as Sudanese General Mustafa Dabi, the head of the Arab League mission, said he saw "nothing frightening" in the city of Homs, the epicenter of the nine-months of the anti-government rising and the first stop on the month-long monitoring mission that kicked off Tuesday, Reuters reports.

"There were some places where the situation was not good," Dabi told Reuters by telephone on Wednesday. "But there wasn't anything frightening, at least while we were there. Things were calm and there were no clashes."

Meanwhile, some members of the opposition believe the Arab League will prove ineffective by concluding that the violence is being generated from both sides.

The opposition also says Dabi's military background disqualifies him from being a neutral witness, while the Arab League's mission is nothing more than a stalling tactic to put off a foreign military intervention.

However, political analyst James Corbett told RT that while the observer mission is in fact lacking in credibility, it is only because conclusions will unlikely be based on facts on the ground.

Syrian Suspense: 'Military intervention definitely on the table'

Source: Corbett Report and RT

The U.S. and its allies are more interested in regime change in Syria than a peaceful solution to the unrest – that’s according to the Kremlin. Russia’s Foreign Minister says Western countries are trying to stir-up Syria’s opposition to topple President Bashar al-Assad. Independent web journalist James Corbett thinks the Arab League suspension of Syria means the West is now much closer to achieving its goal of regime change in Damascus.

"Human Rights" Groups and the Pretext for War in Syria

Source: Corbett Report and RT

The Arab League has announced it’s reached a deal with Syria on easing the country’s long-running political crisis. The agreement urges Damascus to immediately withdraw security forces from the streets, release jailed demonstrators, and start dialogue with the opposition. Syria also agreed to allow rights groups and Arab League watchdogs into the country. But the U.S. still says it wants to see President Assad resign. Independent journalist James Corbett says the Western focus on Syria is part of a much bigger game.