Friday 3 August 2012

Syria, War, Peace and Armageddon


Kofi Annan – the former Secretary-General of the United Nations – has resigned his position as UN-Arab League joint special envoy to Syria.

He authored a six-point peace plan for Syria – intending to bring a halt to the atrocities in that country - but he realises, now, that his vision has little or no chance of coming to pass…

This isn’t because of the actions of the Syrian people.

This is because of the bickering of the international community; the member states of the United Nations – an organisation which was founded in 1945 (taking over from the League of Nations), in the cauldrons of shock at the end of World War II, to ‘to stop wars between countries, and to provide a platform for dialogue’...

… essentially, to support world peace, after the war-loss of roughly…

… and I’ll put this in caps, and embolden it…

SEVENTY-ONE MILLION PEOPLE

… in the first 45 years of the 20th Century, in two World Wars.

World War II was a NUCLEAR WAR, which a lot of people don’t grasp, so I’m capping that, too.

I’m not casting blame on the USA – which, it’s true, is the only country to deploy nuclear weapons in anger – because if Germany, Japan or even the United Kingdom had been able to utilise that technology first, then history would have been very different.

Now, in 2012, we have this situation where the five permanent members of the United Nations (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) – which have veto rights – essentially cancel each other out at nearly every opportunity, because of their political affiliation to a country in question.

It’s a political power play and generally never considers the actual people of a particular country, or the deaths they endure; rather, it’s posturing… for the governmental benefit of the super-force of the day…

Iran used to be friends of the West, but now they’re our enemies.

Iraq used to be enemies of the West, now they’re our friends.

Afghanistan fought against the Russians, then they fought against the US, and now they’re friends of the West.

In a nutshell, it’s fucking crazy.

It’s like George Orwell’s ‘1984’.

Read it and you’ll understand, if it doesn’t burst veins in your head while you try to consider how quickly Big Brother decides to change sides, and you can then equate it to our own non-fiction governments and their own actions.

In Syria, the ‘West’ is backing (and very likely arming) the rebels, who have been cutting off the heads and otherwise executing captured Syrian soldiers, and these soldiers opposing them are only fighting because, if they don’t fight, they’re going to be shot by their own side, or because they’ve heard stories about the soldiers on their side having their heads cut off, so they’re so incensed and afraid and compelled to kill these people who will, they believe, cut off their heads, if they’re captured.

The ‘East’ is backing (and very likely arming) the Syrian ‘regime’, which is fighting against perceived rebels that are cutting off the heads or otherwise executing captured Syrian soldiers.

The thing is, the ‘West’ are backing (and very likely arming) many of (not all, by a long shot) the same sort of people they’re fighting in Afghanistan, and have been fighting in Iraq… just as they did to groups in Libya, when they decided that Gaddafi was no longer their friend, after being his friend and taking his oil in the decade previous - until which he wasn’t their friend - despite knowing his record of dictatorial abuse against his own people, before they decided he was no longer useful to them.

We – the ‘West’ – are fighting the same people in Afghanistan that we’re (very likely) arming in Syria.

We’re killing the fundamentalists in one arena and arming them in another.

We’re playing them like pawns.

I don’t know what the ‘East’ is doing, because I can’t read their newspapers, but I suspect the same sort of games are going on there, too.

And the people who are dying, right now, are Syrians… just normal people, who don’t want to be in a Civil War… who have become lost in the anger of seeing their loved-ones die, and are taking up arms because they’ve been swept along by games played in ‘corridors of power’, thousands of miles from their families and their homes, which are decimating their families, killing them and their children, and destroying their homes.

We – the ‘West’ – have done this over and over and over again, and I’m not differentiating: so have the ‘East’.

When’s it going to stop?

I can tell you one scenario – which isn’t too far-fetched, sadly – but you’re not going to like it…

Here it is:

Syria have already alluded to the fact that they have chemical and biological weapons - and they have the ability to arm them on delivery systems - but they won’t use them internally, against their own people; so the threat there is that they’ll use them to external forces that interfere with the Civil War that they’re now embroiled in.

So, when the Western-backed rebels crush the Syrian ‘enemies’ into the position where they know that, even if they’re captured, they’re going to die, they decide to go out with a bang and launch whatever chemical and biological munitions they can against targets in Israel.

They may have got these weapons into the Lebanon already, so there will be launches from there, too.

Israel – a nation with a great deal of nuclear weapons, though they’ve never signed up to agreeing that they have them – see thousands or tens of thousands of their people slaughtered by Syria, which they know is backed by Iran.

This is perceived as Holocaust Part II.

In their anger, they launch their nuclear weapons against both Syria and Iran, killing millions of people who never wanted to go to war at all.

The rest of the world waits, in agony…

Then we have China and Russia against the US, UK and France, as permanent members of the United Nations…

… with enough firepower to wipe out all life on the planet.

You may think I’m being unpatriotic, but my nephew is in Afghanistan at this very minute. My brother spent 30 years in the Army and retired this year.

I’m supportive of our troops, because they believe they’re doing the right thing, and they genuinely do care about their missions.

What I’m not supportive of is the same mechanic and dynamic of ‘dark corridors’ in government that puts my nephew and my brother in the same position as the millions of people in both world wars, where many were forced over trenches towards certain death by the fire of the ‘enemy’ machine guns, just as their ‘enemies’ were forced to do the same, on pain of execution.

When are we going to understand that most of us really don’t care about global domination, and we’re more than happy to live our lives without the threat of being shot at?

I really do believe that, without the mass-hysteria of the governmental and political systems of World War II, and the disgraceful assumption that the people of any land should work for their perceived leaders (rather than those leaders work for their best interests) it would have been Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill having a punch-up in field somewhere, and the majority of German and British people would have left them to it, with the afterthought of: “Fuck ‘em.”

Nobody that fought in World War One or World War Two, or any other War, didn’t want to go home.

They were terrified.

In the midst of battle, they didn’t want to be there. They wanted to go home.

They wanted to be with their families, to forget war, and to live…

There was a ‘great’ moment, in World War I – on Christmas Day, in 1914 (the first year of the war) – where British and German troops put aside their troubles and played football (soccer) on what would have been their killing fields.

Despite having previously tried to destroy each other, they played together and had fun, just for a while…

Then, their ‘superiors’ put them back to killing each other.

What can we learn from those people who kicked a ball about, with joy? Who seemed to have something so terrible to fight about, but who laughed and played together?

… that there is no difference between Conservative/Republican and Labour/Democrat; that there is no difference between black and white; that there is no difference between gay or straight; that there is no difference between disabled and abled-bodied; that there is no difference between Christian/Muslim/Jew/Atheist/Humanist/Agnostic and every other faith or belief; that there is no difference between auburn, blonde and ginger; that no noses or bodies are the wrong shape…

… that we’re all human beings, trying to be… throughout all the heartache and agony and joy and triumph…  the best we can…

… then we’ll finally understand this one thing…

… we are the same.

And then there’ll be no more fighting.

War will end.

Peace will liberate us to explore and advance the greatest aspects of our species, and we’ll build, together, rather then focus our technology on new ways to kill each other.

You may be scoffing that this will never happen; that humans will always fight against each other, but consider this…

If one person can make that change of perception: if just one person in this world of ours can reject conflict and give their heart and faith and voice to peace, when the egoic mind would want for war, then surely we can all do that?

We are the same.

It could be you who starts that chain-reaction.

5 comments:

  1. A sincere piece. I like the hopeful ending. I hope you're right.

    @michaelcrossann
    michaelcwrites.wordpress.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. Imagine there's no countries
    It isn't hard to do
    Nothing to kill or die for
    And no religion too
    Imagine all the people living life in peace

    You, you may say
    I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one
    I hope some day you'll join us
    And the world will be as one.

    John Lennon

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  3. Outstanding blog, Les. Simply outstanding, and the best blog you've ever written. I think it could be you, that starts the chain-reaction.

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  4. I share a lot of your sentiment on this....however sometimes we do need to stand up against tyranny and barbarism, which unfortunately seems to be rife in arab and eastern culture at this stage in our planet's development. Don't get me wrong, I know it was us that were the barbarians in years gone by but we didn't have nuclear weapons then. A world where a regime like Iran has these weapons is unthinkable....and all us peace lovers need to acknowledge that and consider the alternatives.

    Just my opinion mind...;)

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  5. so impressed with this blog. really touching. i'll be spending the afternoon reading this from the beginning. mikie aka @handbagsnbotox

    ReplyDelete