Tragic victims of our deal
with the devil
Who can fail to be moved
and grieved by the sight of a small child in distress? But please do not let
your emotions stop you thinking.
The picture of the shocked
Aleppo survivor, Omran Daqneesh, like that of the drowned child Alan Kurdi last
year, should not be allowed to enforce a conformist opinion on the world.
The death of Alan Kurdi did
not mean that it was wise to fling wide the borders of Europe (as Germany’s
Angela Merkel now well knows).
The rescue of Omran
Daqneesh should not make us side with the bloody and merciless Syrian rebels.
Why is Aleppo a war zone in
the first place? Do you know? I will tell you. Syria was a peaceful country
until it was deliberately destabilised by Saudi Arabia and its fanatical,
sectarian Gulf allies, consumed with hatred for the Assad government and, above
all, its ally Iran.
Worse, this monstrous
intervention was supported by the USA, Britain and France, all sucking up to
the Saudis for oil, money and arms contracts.
In the hope of bringing
down Assad, we made a devil’s bargain with some of the worst fanatics in the
Middle East, people who make Anjem Choudary look like the Vicar of Dibley.
We know of Britain’s role
for certain because of the very strange case of Bherlin Gildo, a Swedish man
accused by British authorities of attending a terror training camp in Syria.
His trial collapsed in June 2015 because his defence lawyers argued that the
terror groups he was accused of supporting had been helped by British
intelligence.
The Assad state, as you
might expect, defended itself against its attackers, helped in the end by Iran
and Russia.
And the war which followed
was the ruin of Syria, whose innocent people found their peaceful cities and
landscape turned into a screaming battlefield, as it still is.
If you are truly grieved by
the picture of poor little Omran, just be careful who you blame.
