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Syria is a melting pot. It existed like this, like it is today because it is a melting pot with multifarious cultures for centuries, before Christianity and after Christianity, before Islam and after Islam. ~ Bashar al-Assad
Syria (Arabic: سوريا/سورية), officially the Syrian Arab Republic (Arabic: الجمهورية العربية السورية), is a country in the Middle East, bordering Lebanon to the west, Israel to the southwest, Jordan to the south, Iraq to the east, and Turkey to the north. The modern state of Syria attained independence from the French mandate of Syria in 1946, but can trace its roots to the fourth millennium BC; its capital city, Damascus, was the seat of the Umayyad Empire and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Empire.
Quotes
A
- Syria is a melting pot. It existed like this, like it is today because it is a melting pot with multifarious cultures for centuries, before Christianity and after Christianity, before Islam and after Islam. If you have any change, dramatic change, in the demographic and social fabric of the Syrian society, you're going to have a big problem in the future regarding the future of Syria.
- President Bashar al-Assad, The Syria Times, "President Al-Assad to Rai News 24: I will take my country to the shore –not to abandon the ship and the Syrian people" (29 September 2013).
- We are not against cooperation of any country, we will never be, we didn't started this conflict for the others. (but) they started, they supported the terrorists, they give them the umbrella. It's not about isolating Syria now, it's about embargo on the Syrian population, on the Syrian citizens. It's different from isolation, it's completely different...
- Bashar al-Assad, Interview with Jeremy Bowen (9 February 2015) on "Syria conflict: BBC exclusive interview with President Bashar al-Assad"
- The governments of certain countries have denied us our right, under international law, and our national duty to combat terrorism and protect our people on our land and within our own borders. At the same time, these governments formed an illegitimate international coalition, led by the United States, on the pretext of combating terrorism in Syria. The so-called international coalition has done everything but fight terrorism. It has even become clear that the coalition's goals were in perfect alignment with those of terrorist groups; sowing chaos, death and destruction in their path. The coalition destroyed the Syrian city of Raqqa completely; it destroyed infrastructure and public services in the areas it targeted; it committed massacres against civilians, including children and women, which amount to war crimes under international law. The coalition has also provided direct military support to terrorists, on multiple occasions, as they fought against the Syrian army. It should have been more aptly named 'The Coalition to Support Terrorists and War Crimes'.
- The situation in Syria cannot be divorced from the battle raging between two camps on the world stage: one of the camps promotes peace, stability, and prosperity across the world, advocates dialogue and mutual understanding, respects international law, and upholds the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other states. The other camp tries to create chaos in international relations and employs colonization and hegemony as tools to further its narrow interests, even if that meant resorting to corrupt methods, such as supporting terrorism and imposing an economic blockade, to subjugate people and governments that reject external dictates and insist on making their own decisions.
- Walid Al-Moualem Excerpt of Syria's Deputy Prime Minister of Foreign Affairs, Speech to the United Nations General Assembly (29 September 2018)
- What happened in Syria should have been a lesson to some countries but those countries refuse to learn. Instead, they choose to bury their head in the sand. This is why ladies and gentlemen we, the members of this organization, must make a clear and unequivocal choice: are we going to defend international law and the UN charter and be on the side of justice? Or are we going to submit to hegemonic tendencies and the law of the jungle that some are trying to impose on this organization and the world?
- Walid Al-Moualem Excerpt of Syria's Deputy Prime Minister of Foreign Affairs, Speech to the United Nations General Assembly (29 September 2018)
- Today, the situation on the ground is more stable and secure thanks...to the help of Russia...
- Walid Al-Moualem Excerpt of Syria's Deputy Prime Minister of Foreign Affairs, Speech to the United Nations General Assembly (29 September 2018)
B
- Earlier this week, Canadian international human-rights lawyer Irwin Cotler nominated the White Helmets for the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize. The group has been nominated for the NPP before, but failed on previous attempts. Cotler claims that the White Helmets are “the embodiment of what heroism and hope and the search for peace and our common humanity is all about.” A young boy in the Bab Al Nairab district of East Aleppo (after liberation) told me that the White Helmets worked with Nusra Front in a shared building and collaborated in the imprisonment and torture of members of his family. If this is Cotler’s vision of “common humanity” then we are facing a very bleak future...the White Helmet construct was potentially a global franchise that would appear, perhaps rebranded, in other areas of the world targeted for intervention by the imperialist war machine.
- Sweida, Syria - On July 25, 2018, ISIS terrorists attacked Sweida City and villages in the surrounding countryside. The ensuing massacre, one of the bloodiest of the eight-year Syrian conflict, went virtually unreported in the West. The U.S. coalition, illegally occupying Syrian territory, turned a blind eye as the ISIS terrorists that they claim to be waging war on entered the seven villages to the east of Sweida City that were targeted for wanton bloodshed... >At 4 a.m. the terrorist group approached under cover of darkness. They encircled each village, posting snipers around the villages and along the straight road that connects them all, to prevent civilians from leaving or coming to the aid of others. ISIS fighters entered homes and murdered civilians — even children as they slept, unaware of the horror that was approaching. In Shbeki a disabled child was beheaded as he slept. In Shrehi “the roads ran with blood,” according to resident of the village, ----(his full name is not given for security reasons), who lost 35 members of his extended family in the attack....In September, a pall of grief still hung over the villages, and an understandable anger at the bloodbath they had endured. The anger was largely directed at the U.S. and its allies, particularly Britain. The overriding sense was one of a massacre that could have happened only with the U.S. collusion and collaboration with the ISIS terrorist entity Washington claims to be combatting. The implications of this belief are huge — the raison d’etre of the U.S. coalition in Syria is the “elimination” of ISIS, yet here we have civilians telling us that, in their informed view, ISIS has been protected and its power multiplied by the U.S. in Al-Tanf.
- The Syrian government has been fighting off a terrorist invasion of their country for eight years — an invasion financed, equipped and armed by the U.S. coalition and its allies in Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Israel. The “placing of armed groups in the proximity of civilians” is entirely the responsibility of the U.S. and its allies and with its statement, the UN demonstrated the extent to which it acts as an outpost for U.S. Empire, supporting U.S. hegemony and globalism in the region.
- It’s sickening to hear these clowns repeatedly claim that “Assad murdered 500,000 of his people,” as though the U.S.-backed terrorists have played no role in the killings. I’ve viewed hundreds of beheadings and crucifixions online but none committed by Syria troops – all were proudly posted by the hellish filth that we’ve recruited, armed and trained for the past eight years. Major war crimes, like beheading 250 Syrian soldiers after running them across the desert in their underpants, were scarcely mentioned by the MSM.
- We should not allow ourselves to be collectively hypnotized into believing the media hype that would portray murderers as heroes, and the Syrian people and government struggling to expel them from their country as the villains. Author Janine Di Giovanni, another vehement supporter of NATO-backed regime change in Syria, recently penned an article in the New York Times entitled “In Syria Even the Hospitals are not Safe.” Di Giovanni claims that “Bashar Al Assad [personally] attacks medical facilities to break the will of the people — and to destroy evidence of his war crimes.” Di Giovanni fails to mention the rebuilding and restoration of the hospitals in areas of Syria that were previously occupied by the multi-faceted armed groups, which had either destroyed or systematically taken over hospitals and schools before converting them into detention centers, sharia courtrooms, and torture chambers... Di Giovanni dismisses Syrian government claims that targeted hospitals are occupied by the terrorists and armed groups, without addressing the evidence that hospitals and schools were occupied by militant factions in East Aleppo, Eastern Ghouta, Quneitra, Daraa, Homs, and across Syria. Di Giovanni persists in the unequivocal defense of the U.K.-manufactured White Helmets accused by Syrian civilians of child abduction, organ trafficking, participation in executions of civilians and prisoners of war, and the faking of “chemical weapon” events in Douma, Eastern Ghouta, April 2018. Events that fraudulently facilitated the unlawful bombing of Syrian territory by the U.S Coalition on 13th April 2018....
- War is destructive and during a war, it is sadly inevitable that civilians will die or be injured. They are caught up in its ferocity and their lives are devastated. What Di Giovanni fails to do is to explain who created the cycle of violence that has ravaged Syria for eight years. Di Giovanni fails to express outrage over the fact that the United States and its allies in the U.K., European Union, the Gulf States, Turkey and Israel have been equipping, arming, financing and promoting extremist armed factions that have laid waste to cities, historical heritage sites, and civilization across Syria.... The Syrian government has no choice but to liberate Idlib from the terrorist infestation it endures because Syrian civilians will keep dying if these groups are allowed to expand and put down deeper sectarian roots in the region... No other government in the world would tolerate such an invasion of its territory and persecution of its people by foreign mercenaries and hardcore radical factions among its own society.
D
- On Tuesday a top Russian military official slammed the United States for “illegally occupying” a massive zone in southwest Syria surrounding the American garrison of al-Tanf, effectively protecting some 6,000 armed militants that Russia has designated terrorists. The Head of Russia’s National Defense Control Center, Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev, called the US-occupied area “the last stronghold of evil” which continues to fester with militants “on the territory of the independent state.” He identified a 55 km zone surrounding the base in a desert region along the Syrian-Iraq border, which American special forces and US-backed FSA groups have held since 2016 after taking the key crossing from ISIS.
- Tyler Durden in "Stronghold Of Evil" - Russia Slams America's Illegal Syrian Occupation, ZeroHedge.com (12 December 2018)
H
- Syria, using the term in its old, geographical sense, occupies a unique place in the annals of the world. Especially because of the inclusion of Palestine and Phoenicia within its ancient boundaries, it has made a more significant contribution to the moral and spiritual progress of mankind than any other comparable land. Small as it appears on a map or a globe, its historical importance is boundless, its influence universal.
- Philip K. Hitti, Syria: A Short History, (1959), p. 1.
K
- Although Americans are starting to wake up, many people are still caught up in the mainstream narrative regarding the Syrian war.... Starting in 2011, tens of thousands of foreigners – Al Qaeda and other jihadists – were sent into Syria to overthrow Assad. The U.S. and its allies – Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey & Jordan – assisted in buying and transporting weapons to the “insurgents.” Special forces from the U.S., U.K., France and Israel also spent billions of dollars arming and training the terrorists, a.k.a “moderate rebels.” What’s happening in Syria is not a civil war – it’s a proxy war. Assad has been fighting the Islamic terrorists for seven years. It’s cynical and Orwellian for the West to shed crocodile tears for the Syrians and blame Assad for this brutal war. While the presstitutes make it look like Assad is fighting women and children, fact is that the rebels have highly sophisticated weapons – million-dollar tanks, U.S.-made anti-tank missiles that cost $250,000 etc..
- Chris Kanthan in Debunking 10 lies about Syria and Assad, NationofChange, (17 April 2018)
- Assad protects Christians and other minorities. There’s no Sharia Law in Syria, and religious minorities have full freedom. The only group that’s “oppressed” in Syria is the violent Muslim Brotherhood, which has been banned for many decades. The Syrian opposition consists of Sunni extremists who have been persecuting and killing Shiites and Christians for the last seven years.
- Chris Kanthan in Debunking 10 lies about Syria and Assad, NationofChange, (17 April 2018)
- Our demand for restraint in foreign policy must be stronger than defense contractor lobbyists. Our demand for criminal justice reform must be stronger than the prison-industrial complex.
- Ro Khanna in a Twitter post (28 December 2018)
- When progressives remain silent and don’t talk about why the war in Syria is illegal, then into the void step in neocons like Lindsey Graham. Any wonder that our nation remains mired in endless war. Let’s have the guts to stand for responsible withdrawal.
- Ro Khanna in a Twitter post (30 December 2018)
- Here’s something that the mainstream media has left out when talking about Trump’s plan to withdraw troops from Syria: Congress never authorized sending troops to Syria. In fact, the UN also never approved. Our troops in Syria are in violation of domestic and international law.
- Ro Khanna in a Twitter post (31 December 2018)
L
- We hope, and we will work to ensure that both the two opposition delegations and the government delegation are guided not by some personal political ambitions, but the interests of the Syrian people.
- Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Sputnik International (February 2, 2016), "Russian Foreign Minister said that the delegations from Syria's government and opposition participating in intra-Syrian talks in Geneva must protect the country's interests"
- The key component for the ceasefire to be operational is the burning issue of arms smuggling across the Turkish-Syrian border, supplying the militants [in Syria]
- Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov referring to smuggling from the Turkish-Syrian border, supplying militants in Syria, RT (February 3, 2016), "Shutting off smuggling through Turkey-Syria border key condition for ceasefire in Syria - Lavrov"
M
- It's enough killing our children, killing civilians. They pretend to fight terrorism. In fact they don't fight terrorism because they bring terrorism there and Isis is spreading in many areas in Syria more than before because of these Russian strikes
- Opposition Spokesman, Salem al-Mislet, BT (January 31, 2016), "Damascus blasts kill at least 45 as Syria peace talks continue"
J
- I think that the only way that we deal with Syria is to join hands with Russia to diplomatically bring that at an end. But when we’ve aligned ourselves with — when we’ve supported the opposition of the Free Syrian Army — the Free Syrian Army is also coupled with the Islamists. And then the fact that we’re also supporting the Kurds and this is — it’s just — it’s just a mess. And that this is the result of regime change that we end up supporting. And, inevitably, these regime changes have led a less-safe world. ... That has to be the solution, is joining hands with Russia to bring — to bring this civil war to an end.
- Gary Johnson, interview on Morning Joe. (September 8, 2016)
K
- Syria is an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe unmatched since World War II. I appeal to both sides to make the most of this moment — seize the opportunity for serious negotiations
- John Kerry on fights going on in Syria, USAToday (January 31, 2016), "ISIL bombings kill at least 50 in Syria amid shaky peace talks"
M
- I don’t really think there is any kind of a reasonable argument against intervention in Syria. Quite the opposite: There is a moral and a human imperative to act that is larger than any nation’s interests and larger than any strategic calculation. That is so obvious it is an embarrassment to have to say it. This is how I thought about intervention in Iraq 20 years ago and it is how I think about what needs to be done in Syria today.
- Kanan Makiya, "Intervention In Syria is a Moral and Human Imperative", New Republican (February 24, 2012)
- The U.S. Constitution and international law suffered a stinging blow last night at the hands of an odd coalition... As was the case 15 years ago when the U.S. and UK launched a war of aggression against Iraq, the pretext was so-called “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD) — this time the claimed use on April 7 of chlorine (and maybe the nerve agent sarin — who knows?) in Duma a suburb of Damascus...
The attacks by the Gang of Three came hours before specialists from the UN Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons were to arrive in Syria to study soil and other samples in Duma. The question leaps out: Why could the Gang not wait until the OPCW had a chance to find out whether there was such an attack and, if so, what chemical(s) were used? U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis could only say that he believes there was a chemical attack and that perhaps sarin, in addition to chlorine, was involved. Serving until now as the only available “evidence” are highly dubious reports from agenda-laden “social media.” What is clear is that the U.S./UK/French Gang wanted to strike before the OPCW investigators had a chance to ascertain what happened. Hmm. All the earmarks of “Sentence first; verdict afterwards.”
R
- The inhabitants are gradually coming back to Syrian cities and peaceful life is returning ... in this context, the implementation of humanitarian operations will be a new line of work for the Russian armed forces in Syria,
- General Sergei Rudskoi, a senior Russian General Staff official, referring to how peaceful life is returning to Syria after Moscow's military operation with the Syria Government against militants, PressTV (September 23, 2014), "US asks Russia for more 'access' in Syria for humanitarian purposes"
S
- The US foreign policy establishment had rhetorically justified America’s presence in Syria as part of the war on the Islamic State (ISIS). With ISIS essentially defeated and dispersed, Trump called the establishment’s bluff. Yet suddenly, the establishment declared the actual reasons for the extended US presence. Trump’s move, it was charged, would hand geopolitical advantages to Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and Iran’s Ali Khamenei, while imperiling Israel, betraying the Kurds, and causing other ills that are essentially unrelated to ISIS.
- This shift had the benefit of unmasking America’s real purposes in the Middle East, which are not so obscure, after all, except for the fact that mainstream pundits, US establishment strategists, and members of Congress tend not to mention them in polite company. The United States has not been in Syria (or Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, the Horn of Africa, Libya, and elsewhere in the region) because of ISIS. In fact, ISIS was more a consequence than a cause of the US presence. The real purposes have been US regional hegemony; and the real consequences have been disastrous.
- Jeffrey Sachs in Trump’s Syria Withdrawal is a Chance for Peace, Project Syndicate (2 January 2019)
- The truth about the US presence in Syria has rarely been told. But one can be sure that the US has had no scruples about democracy in Syria or elsewhere in the region, as its warm embrace of Saudi Arabia amply demonstrates. The US decided to promote an insurgency to overthrow Bashar al-Assad in 2011 not because the US and allies like Saudi Arabia longed for Syrian democracy, but because they decided that Assad was a hindrance to US regional interests. Assad’s sins were clear: he allied with Russia, and he received support from Iran.
- Jeffrey Sachs in Trump’s Syria Withdrawal is a Chance for Peace, Project Syndicate (2 January 2019)
- The foreign policy establishment opposes the US exit from Syria on the grounds that it would empower Iran and Russia, Syria’s allies... The [U.S.] security state typically tries to maintain military bases in those places where the United States has once intervened... This naive approach to foreign policy — overthrow the governments we don’t like and replace them with ones we do like — is the crux of the US foreign policy problem. As a result of this approach, the United States has been enmeshed in nonstop wars of regime change in the Middle East and North Africa, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Libya...
- Since a direct US-led war on Syria would have been a violation of international law, Obama unleashed the CIA to operate covertly with Saudi Arabia and other countries. The CIA and Saudi Arabia teamed up...to back anti-Assad Syrian forces and jihadists from outside Syria. There was, of course, no vote by Congress, no honest leveling with the American people, and no UN vote.After six years of war, destruction, and failure in Syria, it’s time for... ending US support for anti-Assad forces. Yet the security state remains fixated on the presence of Iran and Russia in Syria. End the war, and let diplomacy under a UN framework sort out the aftermath of a US-led war that never should have occurred.
- President Trump recently suggested that the United States should come out of Syria “very soon.” Leading voices of the foreign policy establishment — in the Pentagon, State Department, Congress, and the media — pushed back, calling for the United States to stay in Syria... Trump was right..while the security state was wrong yet again. It’s long past time for the United States to end its destructive military engagement in Syria and across the Middle East, though the security state seems unlikely to let this happen.
- Syria isn’t so much a country as it is an exhibit for Dictatorship Inc., the main purpose of which is to show that resistance really is futile. That’s why Russia doesn’t shrink from bombing civilian hospitals, or Hezbollah from starving entire cities into submission, or Assad from using chemical weapons. They are showing their respective publics the lengths to which they are prepared to go to maintain their own grip on power.
- Bret Stephens, "The Rise of Dictatorship Incorporated" (2 March 2018), The New York Times
V
- Veterans for Peace is pleased to hear that President Trump has ordered a total withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, where they had no legal right to be in the first place. Whatever the reasoning, withdrawing U.S. troops is the right thing to do. It is incorrect to characterize the U.S. military intervention in Syria as “fighting terrorism,” as much of the media is doing... Veterans For Peace knows that the U.S. is a nation addicted to war. At this time of uncertainty, it is critically important that we, as veterans, continue to be clear and concise that our nation must turn from war to diplomacy and peace. It is high time to unwind all these tragic, failed and unnecessary wars of aggression, domination and plunder. It is time to turn a page in history and to build a new world based on human rights, equality and mutual respect for all. We must build momentum toward real and lasting peace. Nothing less than the survival of human civilization is at stake.
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