my daughter, Imogen, at the home of Ananias in Damascus
As Steven Sahiounie points out in his article below, the fighting in Syria has all but ended and yet Syrian refugees remain spread around the world. This is entirely the result of the US and European economic sanctions. The stated aim of these sanctions is to cause civil unrest, resulting in the Syrian people rising up and overthrowing their government – the government of Bashar Al Assad, which does not meet with US approval. I refer to this as the ‘stated’ goal as it’s hard to believe that the US is this naïve. There are zero examples that I am aware of where sanctions imposed by a foreign power lead to this kind of revolution. On the contrary, foreign aggression generally leads to a closer reliance on the government, which has indeed been the pattern in Syria over the last 10+ years of strife.
The sanctions damage ordinary Syrian people. I have many friends across Syria who struggle on a daily basis due to the sanctions. They have no fuel for their cars. They can’t heat their homes during winter. Their jobs (if they can get a job) pay next to nothing. Moreover, those who are sick have little chance of getting their necessary medications.
I remember when I was last in Syria, talking to a wonderful young woman who was part of a group supporting kids with cancer. She explained that for the most part this now involves only sitting with the children as they die, as they cannot get the necessary medications. Of course, those who impose the sanctions will tell you that food and medicines are exempt from sanctions which is true, so far as it goes, but those who impose the sanctions know full well that this option is never taken at a company level. The fines for trading with a sanctioned country are so high that they are designed to bankrupt any company that is caught doing so overnight. No board of directors in their right mind will allow their company to ship food and medicine to a sanctioned country lest they accidentally include a sanctioned widget (or lest their competitors tie them up in court, claiming that they did).
Sanctions thus far seem to have only strengthened the Syrian government and they do immense damage to ordinary Syrian people. Beyond that, they are also at the heart of the global Syrian refugee problem – a problem that shows no signs of abating. The chaos Sahiounie refers to in Germany is a good example, but it is only the tip of the iceberg. When will the US do the world a favour and drop these demonic sanctions. They don’t accomplish their stated aim and they do damage ordinary people in Syria and around the world. I assume that it is American pride that keeps them in place – a dogged refusal to abandon their regime-change policy and to allow the Syrian people to determine their own future. O God, have mercy.
Father Dave
The Syrian refugees in Germany face danger
Lebanese clans living in Germany, who are involved in drug trafficking, have caused death and mayhem. The German police responded to a massive brawl which broke out on June 16 in front of a restaurant in Essen that left a 23-year-old Syrian man dead, several German police officers injured, and 150 Lebanese arrested.
The Lebanese clans operate in Germany as a mafia while controlling drug smuggling and distribution. The police used water cannons and a helicopter to try to contain the violence.
A Syrian family became involved in a dispute with the Lebanese, and the fight began involving hundreds of people on both sides of the conflict, and spread to other areas.
Syrian refugees number 800,000 according to a March 2021 survey. It is the largest refugee community in Germany.
The largest influx of Syrian refugees arrived in Germany from walking on foot across Europe after taking Turkish smuggling boats to Greece in the summer of 2015 when about 350,000 arrived asking for asylum. From the outset, the illegal smuggling activity is what got them to Germany. They were rewarded for breaking European immigration laws.
The Syrians since then have continued to arrive. The fighting in Syria has been over since 2017, but the country was never allowed to rebuild because of US and EU sanctions which prevent any reconstruction or creation of new jobs. The Syrians are economic migrants. They are not fleeing war, they are fleeing poverty and the sanctions which are designed to keep the Syrian people suffering. The US and EU foreign policy on Syria is to keep the citizens so poverty stricken, that they will rise up and overthrow the Damascus government. That was unable to be accomplished by the terrorists that the US and NATO employed since 2011, and it will not be possible now that the terrorists are gone.
read the rest of this article here.
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