Even while he was in prison—jailed in Damascus and Aleppo for a total 11 years during former President Hafez al-Assad’s regime— Omar al-Isso had hope for Syria. Today, he has none.
“I just sometimes cry because everything is like this black hole,” the co-founder of Justice and Freedom for Syria, and current Halifax resident, says.
Although al-Isso blames the incumbent for what’s become of Syria, the international community, he says, is also at fault.
The way al-Isso sees it, if the United States had altruistic intentions, it would have intervened in Syria before the chemical weapons episode last month near Damascus. “I don’t trust the US in any intervention,” he says, recalling its war in Iraq.
Instead, al-Isso says, it’s time for the United Nations to step in and say, “This is enough.” This, of course, would require Russia to lift its veto, a move he sees as being unlikely.
“Once you give countries the veto power, the United Nations becomes a joke,” says Mohamed Masalmeh, also a Justice and Freedom for Syria co-founder and a Halifax resident.
Masalmeh doesn’t think US President Barack Obama, nor any other foreign leader, has “warm feelings for the Syrian people” given the length of the conflict.
Rather, Obama is concerned with salvaging his reputation, protecting Israel and its allies, and sending a message to Assad “that he can’t use chemical weapons at that scale again,” Masalmeh says.
Still, if the international community does mobilize, it should “act at all levels,” which will include, to some extent, acting militarily.
But, Masalmeh regresses, “No Syrian wants ‘boots on the ground.’”
Other Haligonians, it turns out, don’t want that either.
No Harbour For War, a Halifax group that, according to its newsletter, “opposes the war aims of the US empire,” met last week at Victoria Park, carrying signs with messages including “Hands Off Syria!”.
Chris Maxwell, of the Halifax Peace Coalition, was among the protestors. Without the U.N.’s approval, he suggests, a military intervention is “absolutely illegal.”
“It is a war crime.”
Maxwell and Isaac Saney, another protestor, doubt the US is acting out of compassion and in response to the chemical weapons attack.
“It has all to do with the U.S. drive for global hegemony,” says Saney, who teaches history at Dalhousie and Saint Mary’s universities. Additionally, he says, “It’s about great power competition with China and Russia.”
Maxwell holds a similar belief, referring to Iran as “a stepping stone to China.”
Local author Gary Zatzman, who turned out for the protest, agrees. “They cannot get at Iran without wiping out Syria.” He calls the chemical weapons “a pretext,” and says, “If there wasn’t the presence of these chemical stockpiles, either in Syria or very near it, the US would’ve come up with yet another pretext.”
Zatzman and Saney discussed the illegality of an unauthorized intervention and how it discounts Syria’s sovereignty. “The fundamental tenant of international law is the fact that people have a right to self determination and the principle of non-interference,” Saney says. “There’s no cause here for war.”
This article appears in Sep 12-18, 2013.
China and Russia will veto any resolution which proposes UN intervention. They believe that internal strife is the business of the citizens and not the business of other countries or institutions.
What does Mr Maxwell and the others think of the UN ‘duty to protect’ ?
These are the same people who would have been crying that the west doesn’t care if they’d just ignored the chemical attacks.
Are the protestors saying that they do not believe that there were any chemical attacks, or that they think, regardless, that the west (namely the US) should do nothing and let Syria sort it out?
And what about the Syrian gentlemen who accuses the west of not caring because nobody acted sooner? It’s not our job to put an end to a civil war in another country.
I say, take and/or destroy the chemical weapons, but let the war play out. It’s not our place to get involved and decide who is going to run another country.
Pretty broad statement, not all of us are in agreement here in halifax. If they will use them on their own people they will use them against their neighbours. Saying they will destroy all of them is simply bs
It’s a civil war (strange choice of words) between two factions of the religion of peace, We should arm BOTH sides and let them have at it, then deal with the winner
I can’t believe people still hold to the idea that the UN’s Rubber Stamp makes anything ok. The UN can go fuck itself. Seriously, people.
If I object to intervention in Syria it is because there is nothing in the country worth the price of a Tomahawk cruise missile, let alone the life of a single American serviceman.
How do you punish a detestable scumbag like Assad without punishing innocent people, who, lets be honest, have been punished more than enough in the last few years. Overthrowing a secular thug leaves the playing field wide open to a whole rainbow coalition of thugs just as brutal and even harder to contain. You want to punish Assad – hack into his private bank accounts and make his personal wealth disappear. Just as illegal and much more effective. Of course, it does raise the spectre of a similar reprisal.