Immoral British Leaders Exploit Refugee Crisis; Push for Military Action in Syria

TND Guest Contributor: Steven MacMillan

Just in case you thought UK leaders couldn’t get anymore morally bankrupt, the British establishment is exploiting the tragic refugee crisis that has gripped Europe to push for even more military intervention in the Middle East and North Africa.

Despite the fact that NATO’s proxy war in Syria – which involves funding, arming and training an array of rebel mercenaries to overthrow the secular Syrian government – has directly caused millions of innocent Syrian people to be internally or externally displaced, the solution to the crisis in the cold, dead eyes of some British politicians is…….more war of course. What else could they possibly be advocating? Peace is not a word used in the corridors of Downing Street.

Conniving UK politicians have exploited the latest tragedy to reintroduce a debate in parliament on British military action in Syria with the view to a vote in the coming weeks, using the pretext of fighting Islamic State (ISIS) as a way to advance the war against the Syrian government. As Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, stated last year:

“There are reasons to suspect that air strikes on Syrian territory may target not only areas controlled by Islamic State militants, but the government troops may also be attacked on the quiet to weaken the positions of Bashar Assad’s army.” 

A small British force of approximately 20 troops could also be sent to Libya to supposedly secure its borders, after NATO’s 2011 war destroyed and destabilized the North African nation.

Obviously, if the UK is overtly granted powers to go to war in Syria by the British parliament, it would only be the next step in a war London has played a leading role in since it erupted in 2011.  Working covertly, the UK has been at the forefront of the drive to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, as British intelligence has played a pivotal role in supporting the Syrian rebels, a reality that further came to light when a terror trial collapsed at the Old Bailey this year.

Even though British parliament voted in 2013 against military action in Syria, it was revealed after a freedom of information request filed by human rights group Reprieve that Prime Minister, David Cameron, and Defense Secretary, Michael Fallon, had secretly allowed UK pilots to take part in the illegal US-led coalition in Syria.

Corbyn to the Rescue

 A spanner in the nefarious grand plans of Cameron and fellow NATO leaders however, is the rise of the popular anti-war politician, Jeremy Corbyn, who could potentially win the race to become the new labour leader (despite all the demonization by many within the establishment) .

As well as correctly denouncing the Iraq invasion as an “illegal war” and stating that Tony Blair should answer for his crimes in the 2003 war, Corbyn has revealed that he would not support military action in Syria without approval from the UN, which puts serious pressure on the warmonger Cameron. Corbyn added that he would struggle to imagine any circumstance when he would authorise foreign military intervention.

The British PM has already indicated he would curtail his push for military action in Syria if Corbyn is elected opposition leader, most probably because Corbyn would be able to articulate to the British public how insane UK foreign policy actually is, and challenge Cameron’s ludicrous reasoning for more wars in the Middle East.

Hopefully Corbyn’s presence in the UK political arena in conjunction with public opposition to further wars is sufficient to stop Cameron’s push for military intervention in Syria, because if the Western war on Syria intensifies in the coming months, the amount of Syrian people killed, maimed or displaced will only increase. This drive for war is barbaric, and it has to be stopped!

Steven MacMillan is an independent writer, researcher, geopolitical analyst and editor of  The Analyst Report, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

This work was published at the New Eastern Outlook and is reprinted with permission.