Document:Countdown to Destruction in Syria
| A timeline of US and Western-European interference in Syria since its formation in 1916 |
timeline by Dana Visalli dated 21 February 2016Subjects: US Foreign policy, Syria, 2011 Syrian Insurgency
Source: Energy Round Table (Link)
Image right: Destruction in Syria 2011-2016
Author's Note
The following is a timeline of U.S. and western European intervention in Syria over the past 100 years. While it is clear from reading the timeline that the United States has been inimical to Syrian governance for an extended period and even planned to break the country up into defenseless statelets, the larger context of this behavior should be kept in mind. The history of the United States begins with the elimination of the continent’s original inhabitants, the Native Americans, who numbered approximately 10 million. Eight years after the massacre at Wounded Knee the United States claimed Hawaii and asserted ownership of the Philippines. A modern median estimate for the number of Filipinos killed in the 1899-1902 war against the United States is one million.
In 1945 the United States ignored the declarations of independence of both Vietnam and Korea, dividing both countries in half, resulting in a three-year war in Korea that killed four million people, and a 30-year war in Vietnam (starting with the U.S.-supported French effort to regain their colony from 1945-1954) that killed five million people, if we count the sideshow saturation bombing of the impoverished, rice-farming nations of Laos and Cambodia from 1965-1973.
Over a 22 year period from 1990 to 2012 via continuous bombing, sanctions and various forms of torture the United States destroyed the country of Iraq, followed soon after by the destruction of Libya. It continued the unraveling of Afghanistan, which actually began when the British invaded that country in 1838 (and again in 1868). So the destruction of Syria is just standard operating procedure for the American government.★ Start a Discussion about this document
Countdown to Destruction in Syria
The United States has had destructive tendencies for a while now
“I want to go on record as saying that this is the stupidest, most irresponsible action a diplomatic mission like ours could get itself involved in, and that we've started a series of these things that will never end.” US State Department official Deane Hinton on a CIA coup to manipulate Syria & its government, 1949 [1]
- 1916- Sykes-Picot Agreement, Syria ‘given’ to France, Iraq to Britain. [2]
- 1920- French defeat an independence movement in Syria. [3]
- 1925- France defeats a second independence movement in Syria, shells Damascus [3]
- 1936- France grants Syria independence, but French parliament refuses to ratify [3]
- 1941- Syria declares independence [3]
- 1944- Jewish irregular armed units operating independently of Jewish Agency control (but at times with its tacit approval) launch a campaign of terror against British personnel and Arab civilians in Palestine. [4]
- 1945- France tries to stop independence movement, shells Damascus, kills 400 [3]
- 1946- Independence from France, Syrian President is Shukri al-Quwatli [5]
- 1947- The Promised Land extends from the River of Egypt up to the Euphrates, it includes parts of Syria and Lebanon—UN testimony by Rabbi Fischmann, member of the Jewish Agency for Palestine [6]
- 1948- Israel created out of Palestine, Arab-Israeli War
- 1948- Syria participates in Arab wars against Israel in 1948, 1967 & 1973, earning U.S. enmity. [7]
- 1949- CIA-sponsored coup under Truman over oil pipeline through Syria, see Deane Hinton quote
- 1949- Two more coups, CIA man overthrown in the second, another returned in third
- 1954- Fourth coup, CIA-supported Adib Shiskali overthrown [5]
- 1955- Shukri al-Quwatli re-instated (see above, 1946). [5]
- 1956- CIA under Eisenhower tries to overthrow al-Quwatli with ‘Operation Straggle’ [8]
- 1957- Eisenhower implements ‘Operation Wappen,’ another coup attempt [5]
- 1957- Turkey masses 50,000 troops on Syrian border after the latter was claimed to be a ‘Soviet Satellite’ with ‘not more than 123 Russian MIGs’ (fighter planes). Reporter Kennett Love later said that "there were indeed 'not more than 123 Migs'. There were none." [8]
- 1960s- Frequent coups, military revolts, civil disorders and bloody riots
- 1970- Minister of Defense Hafez al-Assad seizes power in a bloodless coup
- 1979- Syria earns increased animosity of the U.S. government by supporting the Iranian revolution. [9]
- 1980- National Security Council urges Secretary of State Zbigniew Brzezinski to identify “possible alternative regimes to Syia’s Hafez al-Assad government. [10]
- 1982- “Israel must become an imperial regional power, and must effect the division of the whole area into small states by the dissolution of all existing Arab states.” from ‘A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s’ [11]
- 1996- American Report: “Israel can shape its strategic environment by weakening Syria.” A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm. The document proposed regime change in Iraq primarily as a “means” of “weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. As Pat Buchanan put it: “In the Perle-Feith-Wurmser strategy, Israel’s enemy remains Syria, but the road to Damascus runs through Baghdad.” [12]
- 2003- Israel launches a missile attack on Syria, the first strike into Syrian territory in 30 years. President Bush immediately condoned the attack
- 2004-. Labeling Syria “an extraordinary threat, US Congress passed sanctions against the country. [13]
- 2006- Cable from William Roebuck, chargé d'affaires at the US embassy in Damascus published later by Wikileaks. The cable outlines strategies for destabilizing the Syrian government. [14]
- 2007- We need to do everything possible to destabilize the Syrian regime. Cheney’s Middle East adviser David Wurmser. [15]
- 2009- US blocks Syrian efforts to join the World Trade Organization, which along with sanctions negatively impacts the Syrian economy.[16]
- 2012- From Defense Intelligence Agency document: “The West, Gulf Countries and Turkey support the Syrian opposition…There is a possibility of establishing a Salfist Principality in Eastern Syria.”
- 2012- CIA known to be funneling weapons to Syrian opposition [17]
- 2016- 320,000 Syrians killed since open warfare began in 2011, with 12 million refugees (out of a total population of 22 million), and the human and ecological infrastructure of the country largely destroyed.
References
- ↑ http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/washingtons-long-history-syria-8717
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement
- ↑ a b c d e https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Syria
- ↑ http://www.coldwarstudies.com/2012/12/04/palestine-israel-timeline-1942-1948/
- ↑ a b c d http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/washingtons-long-history-syria-8717
- ↑ http://www.globalresearch.ca/greater-israel-the-zionist-plan-for-the-middle-east/5324815
- ↑ http://www.nmhtthornton.com/mehistorydatabase/arabisraeliwars.php
- ↑ a b https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Syria
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Syria_relations
- ↑ NSC (1980) ‘Syria July 16, 1980’, National Security Council, 4203XX, Memorandum for Zbigniew Brzezinski, declassified document.
- ↑ http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1025.htm
- ↑ http://scotthorton.org/fairuse/2014/01/27/a-clean-break-a-new-strategy-for-securing-the-realm-by-david-wurmser-1996/
- ↑ http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/11/us.syria/
- ↑ US Embassy Damascus (2006) ‘Influencing the SARG in the end of 2006’ - Cable to US State Department, Wikileaks, 13 December
- ↑ http://original.antiwar.com/dan_sanchez/2015/06/29/clean-break-to-dirty-wars/
- ↑ Sadat, Mi H and Daniel B Jones (2009) ‘U.S. Foreign Policy Towards Syria: balancing ideology and national interests’ - Middle East Policy Council, Summer, Volume XVI, Number 2
- ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/world/middleeast/cia-said-to-aid-in-steering-arms-to-syrian-rebels.html?_r=0
