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Collective Punishments and Humanitarian Aid

  • Bouthaina Shaaban Bouthaina Shaaban
  • Source: Al Mayadeen
  • 10 Jul 2021 21:23
  • 7 Shares
8 Min Read

What the West wants to do is to violate Syrian sovereignty, lay the foundations for dividing Syria, and to supply terrorist groups with weapons in the name of humanitarian aid.

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  • Collective Punishments and Humanitarian Aid

For the past two months, all Western media and research centers have been preoccupied with a single topic about Syria, which is the necessity of opening the so-called "humanitarian corridors" across the border, lamenting over those who will suffer hunger and poverty if the benevolent hands of the West are not allowed to be extended to save their lives. They believed their lie and rejoiced in it, because it gives them the chimerical satisfaction that they are in harmony with their moral rules for which they have always been calling, pretending saving people and caring about people's health, food and lives. 

The strange thing, however, is that all this Western-oriented media talked about is three million people living in the north-west and north-east of Syria, and did not mention at all the twenty million Syrians who are languishing under immoral, illegal and illegitimate collective punishments that prevent them from accessing food, medicine and power, and punishing any party who tries to lend a hand for them or who dares to violate these penalties by any means. 

Another strange thing is that no one has linked between Caesar’s law, which is not a law but a violation of all humanitarian and moral laws, and the suffering of the Syrian people over the past years, and no thinker in the West has ever tried to challenge this noisy media wave by highlighting the fact that all the aid sent by the United Nations has been distributed by United Nations organizations operating in Syria over the Syrian territory. What the West wants to do is to violate Syrian sovereignty, lay the foundations for dividing Syria, and to supply terrorist groups with weapons in the name of humanitarian aid.

Does it make sense for dozens of countries to convene a conference in Rome in order to discuss humanitarian aid to Syria, without mentioning the main reason for the suffering of all Syrians, namely the unilateral, coercive, illegal and aggressive measures imposed on the Syrian people? Following this conference, the Washington Post wrote in its editorial on June 30, 2021: "there is no better place to demonstrate our values than in Syria, by extending humanitarian aid and reaching a settlement to the war there, as per the agreed terms of the U.N. Security Council Resolution 2254." The writer complains that Syria has been a drag on US diplomacy for more than ten years! Such writers should rather ask the Syrians about the suffering they experienced due to the US occupation over the past ten years, and about the crimes that have been committed, wheat that has been stolen, and oil that has been smuggled, and lands that have been illegally seized by the force of American weapons in harsh violation of all international laws and legitimacy!

While reading what the Western media is publishing about Syria, I wonder about the distorted image that is being formed in the minds of Western readers as a result of misleading information which has nothing to do with reality, and which fills the pages of this media, ignoring the truth and all the difficulties and tragedies that Syrians are living, because referring to such tragedies means referring to the Western perpetrator. Therefore, everything mentioned about Syria has been written in the passive form, just as the Zionists used to do for decades when broadcasting news about Palestine and Palestinians; you cannot find a sentence in the active voice because it requires mentioning the subject, who is the causative of all crimes perpetrated against the innocent Syrians, and this is not allowed. 

In all the media promotion before the Rome Conference and following it, Syria had been shrunk to the northwest and northeast, to be under control of terrorists and occupiers, without any mention of the Syrian people who suffered patiently, and liberated a large part of their land and are trying to rebuild their lives and properties despite the difficulties created by the criminal sanctions against them. 

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The editorial of Newsweek of June 30, insinuates that Syria and Iraq are inhabited only by “Iranian militias”, as if the Syrian and Iraqi peoples do not exist, and that the United States is obliged to respond to Iranian drone attacks in Iraq, and therefore it is bombing the Iraqi-Syrian border near Al-Bukamal. Since the United States has the right, as the editorial suggests, protecting its forces anywhere in the world, nobody showed any concern when the United States bombed facilities and killed people. However, they consider those attacks as acts of self-defense.  The author says that the issue is not limited only to whether this aggression is legitimate or not, he rather raised the following question: why do members of the Iraqi army, who are being trained by the United States, attack the American forces? The author is trying to correct a "strategic shift" in the United States' view that they were unable to instill a sense of deterrence in Iraq. 

Firstly, The American forces refrained from attacking Al-Bukamal crossing and from maintaining Al-Tanf crossing too, not only to back up their troops, which should not be here in the first place, but rather to ensure safety to the terrorists they protect, and be able to move them whenever and wherever they want. Secondly, the United States wants to cut the geographical connection between Iraq and Syria on the one hand, and between Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon on the other. This action represents one of the strategic goals of the Zionist entity, who considers any communication between these countries, in the frame of the resistance axis, as an existential threat to it. In other words, the United States is implementing the targets of "Israel", moreover they do not respond to attacks because they are the ones who start the aggression. Thirdly, if the writer of the editorial believes that the Iraqi army, or any other army in the region, will express in the future his gratitude and loyalty to the American forces, he is certainly wrong. The peoples of the region are much smarter than you can ever think; Iraqis and Syrians are aware that it is the US occupying forces who prevent communication between the two countries and hinder the opening of the borders between two close brother countries. Our people are completely aware that the US troops want to open the borders with the Turkish occupier who used the frontier lines for the past ten years to help terrorists infiltrate Syria and provide them with illicit supplies (money and weapons).

It occurred to me while reading the editorial of the Washington Post and the editorial of Newsweek, of June 30, 2021, that the Western transatlantic people would be better off, if they do not read such misleading editorials and analysis which have nothing to do with the reality of the situation in our countries and our region, because such analysis stem from the writers' sense of false colonial superiority and from a premeditated intent to drown our people into a sea of ignorance, abandoning them to  sufferings, stifling their innovation and destroying their ambition.

Today, the US troops are getting out of Afghanistan after causing countless tragedies to innocent Afghani peoples; while no one knows why did they enter or why do they leave now. They claimed that they went to Afghanistan to liberate its people from Taliban, while their actions prove that they contributed to its perpetuation and spread.

Every time I read what the American media and research centers publish, I wonder about the curricula of History in the United States and about what they teach all their students, but this is another topic that needs to be addressed.  

The opinions mentioned in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Al mayadeen, but rather express the opinion of its writer exclusively.
  • Syria
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Bouthaina Shaaban

Bouthaina Shaaban

Arab Intellectual

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