[Stopwar-l] Canadian Peace Alliance condemns Israeli bombing of Syria

[StopWar]

Canadian Peace Alliance condemns Israeli bombing of Syria

John Baird supports latest illegal Israeli attacks

May 6, 2013

The recent Israeli attacks on Syrian territory are designed to further
destabilize the situation in the area and push us closer to a larger
regional war. They are illegal under international law and must be
condemned.

For the last two years NATO and its allies have been attempting to control
the Syrian opposition by funneling weapons to the rebels through the gulf
states, deploying missile batteries in Turkey and by sending U.S. Special
Forces to the Syrian/Jordanian border.

This Israeli attack signals a dramatic escalation in that intervention.
The timing of the strikes suggest that Israel is attempting to stoke the
conflict to provide justification for a larger
NATO led military campaign.

If the government of Bashar Al Assad were to gain ground on the opposition
forces, as appeared to be possible as recently last week, it would pose a
serious challenge for NATO countries hoping to use the conflict in Syria
to weaken other regional players, especially, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the
government of Iran.

And so the west is ramping up the rhetoric. Recently, U.S. intelligence
officials stated that they had "some degree of varying confidence" that
the Syrian state was using sarin gas on opponents. That absurd statement
was hardly the smoking gun that NATO wanted to justify the intervention. A
leading UN investigator now says that the sarin may have been used by the
opposition forces rather than the Syrian government.

All these factors point towards a larger – if not entirely coherent -
drive to war with Syria. Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird
suggested that Canada is talking to its allies about a possible attack.
His press secretary Rick Roth subsequently "clarified" Baird's statement
and said that Canada isn't contemplating support for a military attack on
Syria.

But Canadians know what the government says, and what it does, in the
realm of military intervention, are often two very different things. Most
recently, they told Canadians no troops would be sent to support the
French led mission in Mali, but deployed Canadian special forces within a
week. In 2008 and in 2010, they extended the mission in Afghanistan after
promises that they would not do so.

Any NATO attack on Syria would result in a much larger war throughout the
Middle East and must be opposed. As we see in places like Libya and
Afghanistan, NATO intervention have a tendency to leave a trail of dead
bodies and corrupt governments.

All Canadians concerned about peace need to be on the alert for any
further escalation and should be prepared for action should the Harper
government decide to intervene in this conflict.

More information: http://www.acp-cpa.ca/en/No-NATO-Intervention-in-Syria.html



-- 
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for Justice and Peace

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