Citizens Electoral Council of Australia

Media Release Wednesday, 5 October 2016

Craig Isherwood‚ National Secretary
PO Box 376‚ COBURG‚ VIC 3058
Phone: 1800 636 432
Email: cec@cecaust.com.au
Website: http://cec.cecaust.com.au

Syria crisis teeters on edge of WWIII

Both Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop have recently called Syria a proxy war between the USA and Russia. “We are currently seeing a proxy war between Russia and the US and other players in this disaster”, Bishop told ABC-TV’s Insiders on 2 October.

This raises a very serious question: why is Australia’s military deployed in a proxy war against Russia? This reality wasn’t explained to the Australian people when Tony Abbott deployed our personnel into Syria in September 2015, nor debated during the federal election. Do Australians really want to be involved in a proxy war with Russia that could escalate into open conflict?

In the weeks since the USA and Australia on 17 September destroyed the ceasefire by bombing and killing more than 60 Syrian Arab Army troops, the danger of the proxy war turning into an actual war has suddenly escalated. A torrent of Western media disinformation sourced from al-Qaeda-linked fake humanitarian operatives called the “White Helmets” has accused Russia of targeting a UN aid convoy, and civilians and hospitals in Aleppo. The USA announced on 3 October it had cut off all contact with the Russians over Syria. The 30 September New York Times reported a leaked audio recording of a 22 September meeting, on the sidelines of the UN, between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Syrian opposition groups (including the White Helmets) who demanded a full US military intervention. Kerry claimed only a few people in the Obama administration supported such an intervention, but the stage is being set. Retired US generals this week put forward four options for Obama to dangerously escalate in Syria, including safe zones on the Syrian border, bombing the Syrian air force, supplying the rebels with surface to air missiles, and a no-fly zone—the ruse by which the United States, Britain and France turned the 2011 Libya intervention into regime change. “Are we anywhere near a point where the US might start bombing the Assad regime and what would be the consequences of that?”, Insiders host Barrie Cassidy asked Julie Bishop. “That would be an all-out war”, Bishop replied.

Australians must take stock of the fact that our presence in Syria is illegal under international law, as John Kerry admitted to the Syrian opposition groups. Kerry said the USA can’t intervene in Syria unless authorised by the UN Security Council, or invited in. “Russia is invited in, by the legitimate regime—well it’s illegitimate in my mind—but by the regime”, he admitted. Kerry’s admission also applies to the existing presence of the USA, Australia, the UK and others in Syria, on the pretext of attacking Islamic State.

Lesson of Iraq, Libya

Australians must also face up to the truth that the claims of our so-called allies, to justify our actions in Syria, have zero credibility. As the UK’s Chilcot and Libya reports both demonstrate, the UK and USA destroyed their credibility in Iraq and Libya. The Iraq WMD lies are notorious; the plainly-worded findings in the UK House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee’s 14 September Libya Report, and the fact that the same lies are being recycled for Syria, all lead to one conclusion:

In order to create a pretext to bomb and invade the nations they target for regime change, the USA and UK just make up lies!

Compare the claims that have been made about Syria for five years, with the identical claims made about Libya in 2011. Here is what we have been told ad nauseam about Syria:

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is a butcher who is killing his own people;
The people of Syria are in revolt against Assad;
The Assad regime must go, before there can be a peaceful resolution to the Syria crisis.

Here is what British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and US President Barack Obama said about Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in an open letter published in major newspapers on 15 April 2011:

“Libya descended into chaos with Colonel Gaddafi attacking his own people … the people of Libya are suffering terrible horrors at Gaddafi’s hands each and every day.”
“[H]e has lost the consent of his people …”
“[I]t is impossible to imagine a future for Libya with Gaddafi in power. … It is unthinkable that someone who has tried to massacre his own people can play a part in their future government. … Colonel Gaddafi must go, and go for good.”

Here are the findings in the Libya Report pertaining to these claims (from the Summary):

“In March 2011, the United Kingdom and France, with the support of the United States, led the international community to support an intervention in Libya to protect civilians from attacks by forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi. This policy was not informed by accurate intelligence. In particular, the Government failed to identify that the threat to civilians was overstated and that the rebels included a significant Islamist element.” (Emphasis added.) In other words, Gaddafi was not killing his own people, and the rebellion against him was not a grassroots uprising of everyday Libyans, but a foreign-backed “Islamist element”, meaning al-Qaeda terrorists.
“By the summer of 2011, the limited intervention to protect civilians had drifted into an opportunist policy of regime change. That policy was not underpinned by a strategy to support and shape post-Gaddafi Libya. The result was political and economic collapse, inter-militia and inter-tribal warfare, humanitarian and migrant crises, widespread human rights violations, the spread of Gaddafi regime weapons across the region and the growth of ISIL in North Africa.” (Emphasis added.)

If Iraq and Libya aren’t enough evidence that the US and UK’s lies are not mistakes or poor analysis etc., but are deliberately made up, Syria is the proof: the same governments assisted by the same media outlets to tell the same lies are using the same Islamist terrorists to repeat the same regime change operation.

The other conclusion from the Chilcot and Libya reports is that Russia was right! Russia opposed both fiascos, but sat on the sidelines; however, it has intervened in Syria, unwilling to sit on the sidelines any longer. Australia should give Russia credit for its foresight, rather than participate in the propagandistic demonising of Putin and Russia that risks World War III.

Click here for an honest analysis, by Virginia State Senator Richard Black, of what is happening in Aleppo (14-min. video).

Click here to sign the CEC’s petition, “Australia must get out of Syria”, at change.org (if you have already signed on the CEC website, please sign again on change.org, as the two versions of the petition will be used differently). Share this link on social media and with everyone you know.

Click here for a free copy of the latest Australian Alert Service, featuring in-depth analysis of the latest developments in the Syria crisis.

Click here to join the CEC as a member.

Click here to refer others to receive regular email updates from the Citizens Electoral Council of Australia.